^ 




Book J 






[ Whole Number 178 

BUREAU OF EDUCATION 
CIRCULAR OF INFORMATION NO. 8, 1891 



RISE AND GROWTH 



OF THE 



NORMAL-SCHOOL IDEA 



IN THE 



UNITED STATES. 



BY 



J. P. GORDY, 

PROFESSOR OF PEDAGOGY IN OHIO UNIVERSITY AT ATHENS, OHIO, 
AND AUTHOR OF "LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY." 



WASHINGTON : 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
Ife9l. 



^H' 






n nr n. 



O 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Letter of transmittal , 5 

Introduction 7 

Chapter I. — Beginnings of tlie nornial-scbool idea in tlie United States 9 

Chapter II. — Training of teachers in the academies of New York np to 1844. . . 26 

Chapter III. — The first normal school in America 42 

Chapter IV. — The normal school at Oswego 61 

Chapter V. — The State normal school at Worcester, Mass 76 

Chapter VI. — The normal school idea as embodied in the normal school at St. 

Cloud 90 

Chapter VII.— Chairs of pedagogy «. 98 

Chapter VIII. — The New York college for the training of teachers 104 

Chapter IX. — The training of teachers in the New York academies under the 

supervision of the department of public instruction 114 

Chapter X. — General survey and summary 120 

Subject index 143 

o 



5702 1 



LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



Department of the Interior, 

Bureau of Education, 
Washington, D. C, October 20, 1891. 

Sir: The accompanying circular, entitled the "Rise and Growth ot 
the Normal- School Idea in the United States," is the work of Prof. J. P. 
Gordy, incumbent of the chair of pedagogy in the Ohio University, at 
Athens, and for some time editor of an excellent "Journal of Pedagogy." 

The task which the author has here set himself is, "to trace the growth 
and development of the normal idea in the United States." He ex- 
plains his theme more fully, as follows : 

"Probably no two students would agree precisely as to the elements 
that enter into this development. The greater their disagreement, the 
more widely, of course, would they differ as to the institutions in which 
these elements first appeared. As the author conceives it, the first form 
in which the normal idea appeared in this country was the belief that 
the teacher needs special preparation, but that this special preparation 
consists in the simple addition of the study of certain subjects to 
the training required for the professions or for business, and, in his 
opinion, the institutions in which this idea was embodied were the 
New York academies. This erroneous conception, as the author deems 
it, gave place to the truer idea — that the proper preparation of the 
teacher requires not only a mastery of the art and science of education, 
as far as that is possible, but a thorough grounding in the subjects he 
is to teach — that the knowledge of a subject that suffices for the citizen 
does not suffice for the teacher. This idea, he conceives, was embodied 
in the normal schools of Massachusetts in the beginning. But while 
these schools had a definite conception that there is a science of educa- 
tion, they did not formulate their ideas as to what that science is. The 
normal school at Oswego, it appeals to the author, took a step towards 
determining that science and making explicit the art that should be 
based upon it. That institution taught that the only nourishment of 
the mind is realities, and that the whole work of the teacher consists in 
bringing the mind into contact with the appropriate realities. But this 
school left to the uneducated tact of the teacher the decision of the 
question as to what realities are appropriate: The normal school at 
Worcester took a decided step in advance in insisting that this tact may 
be wonderfully quickened by the careful study of children, and in suc- 

5 



6 LETTEE OF TRANSMITTAL. 

cessfully embodying this idea in its method of work. The conception 
that teachers of higher grades of schools need professional preparation 
is embodied in college departments of pedagogy, and, therefore, a chap- 
ter is devoted to that subject. The conception that the institution which 
gives teachers thorough preparation should be a school of university 
grade is embodied in the normal idea, as it was attempted to be realized 
in the normal school at St. Cloud under the presidency of Mr. Gray. 
That idea, the author thinks, is true, but the attempt to realize it in an 
institution which undertakes to prepare teachers for elementary schools, 
must, in the nature of the case, in his opinion, be a failure. The New 
York College for the training of teachers is an attempt to embody this 
true idea without encumbering it with conditions that make its realiza- 
tion impossible. That institution clearly realizes that a school of uni- 
versity grade must require students of a university grade of prepara- 
tion to avail themselves of its advantages." 

The forgoing sketch will give a general idea of the conclusions reached 
in the circular, and it will explain the selection of the institutions in- 
cluded. If the reputation and excellence of training schools had been 
the determining reason for treating of them, some institutions would 
certainly have had a prominent place that are not mentioned in these 
pages. 

Since this circular was prepared — about 18 months ago — numerous 
changes have taken place that point in the direction of a wider and 
more general recognition of the importance of education as a university 
study. The school of pedagogy in the Clark University, the reor- 
ganization of the Albany Normal School, the new departure taken by 
Harvard in the matter of pedagogy are among the suggestive signs of 
the times. • They indicate, let us hope, that the time is not far distant 
when an untrained teacher will be considered a greater absurdity than 
an untrained doctor or lawyer." 

Believing that the distribution of this work will do much to encourage 
those who look upon the teachers' vocation as a profession, and who 
labor to provide the means of a thorough preparation therefor, I have 
caused it to be published as a circular of information of this Bureau. 
I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, 

W. T. Harris, 

Commissioner. 

Hon. John W. Noble, 

Secretary of the Interior. 



RISE AND GROWTH OF THE NORMAL-SCHOOL IDEA. 



INTRODUCTION. 

I find it hard to think myself into the state of mind of those educators 
who thought the only preparation required of a teacher is a knowledge 
of the subjects he undertakes to teach. I can only explain it as I ex- 
plain the opinion which the schoolmen entertained of the relative veloci- 
ties of falling bodies of different weights, by supposing that they never 
turned their mental gaze steadily upon the question. In the presence of 
facts which contradicted their theory every day of their lives, the school- 
men continued to believe it simply because they never considered the 
facts attentively. I think it must have been for some such reason that 
no educator in this country, up to about a hundred years ago, left be- 
hind him any evidence of believing that he thought any special prepa- 
ration was required of teachers. The traditional notion of education 
having been that it consists in the possession of knowledge, the tradi- 
tional opinion that all that was required to impart this knowledge 
was to possess it, was never questioned. As our forefathers could hon- 
estly say that all men are created free and equal, and fight in defense 
of their assertion with no consciousness of inconsistency while their 
plantations were tilled by their own slaves, because the idea that a 
negro is a man never fairly got into their minds, so teachers, who must 
have realized the value of experience, did not believe that their expe- 
rience could be condensed into propositions and formulated into princi- 
ples which intending teachers could profitably study, because the ques- 
tion never really occurred to them. 

It is of course easy to see why such a question was less likely to be 
asked before we began our experiment of self-government. Before that 
time education was not a subject of such manifest and overriding im- 
portance as it has been since. The early settlers of New England did 
indeed set a high value upon it because of their religious opinions. 
They thought it of the utmost importance that all children should be 
able "to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital 
laws of this country." But at a time when the necessities of life made 

7 



8 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

it incumbent to require the schoolmaster "to act as court messenger, 
to serve summon ses, to conduct certain ceremonial services of the 
church, to lead the Sunday choir, to ring the bell for public worship, to 
dig the graves, to perform other occasional duties/ 7 * as well as take 
charge of the school, it could hardly be expected that anybody should 
ask whether he might not have performed a particular set of his duties 
better if he had made careful preparation for them. No geography was 
studied in the common schools of New England until 1786 or 1787; no 
reading book, except the Bible, was used until the publication of Web- 
ster's "Third Part" in 1785; no history was studied before this century. 
When the masses were content to have their children learn a little read- 
ing and writing and arithmetic, and when they owed no manifest duties 
to society, the successful performance of which made further education 
an imperative necessity, it is easy to see why the question as to the 
proper preparation of teachers was not carefully considered. It was 
lit that the first great democrat, the first great man who really be- 
lieved in the capacity of the people for self-government, should be the 
first great advocate of popular education in this country for other than 
religious reasons. Jefferson never asked himself our question because 
his entire energies in the direction of education were directed to the 
providing of schools. If he had lived in Massachusetts in the genera- 
tion of Horace Mann. he would have realized that the providing of 
schools is not all that is necessary to the education of a people. 



*See Boone's "Education in the United States," p. 12, quotation from the "town 
book" of the statement of the duties of a New England schoolmaster in 1661. 



CHAPTER I. 

BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The first suggestion by an American educator which I have been able 
to find as to the need of more thoroughly trained teachers was made in 
the June number of the Massachusetts Magazine for 1789.* It is con- 
tained in an u Essay upon the Importance of Studying the English Lan- 
guage grammatically/' and runs as follows : 

Since education has "been a question of much debate in this, as well as in many of 
the other States, and what method is best to be adopted in order to lessen every un- 
necessary expense, and yet to establish our schools on a more respectable footing, and 
to diffuse light and knowledge more universally among the people, I beg leave to 
suggest the following plan: As each towu in this Commonwealth of more than 140 
families is obliged by an act of the general court to support a public grammar school, 
in which you Avill very seldom rind more than 3 or 4 boys studying the learned lan- 
guages, and as these scholars are the only persons benefited by the extraordinary ex- 
pense the town is at in obtaining a master qualified for the office, and as perhaps 
nine-tenths of the people of the State do not receive one shilling's advantage per an- 
num by reason of the great distance they live from the several schools, I think to 
annihilate all the Latin grammar schools and establish one in each county will ren- 
der more essential service to the community and fix the schools on a more respecta- 
ble footing than any plan that has yet been suggested. My idea of the matter is sim- 
ply this : That there should be a public grammar school established in each county 
of the State, in which should be taught English grammar, Latin, Greek, rhetoric, 
geography, mathematics, etc., in order to fit young gentlemen for college and school 
keeping. At the head of this county school I would place an able preceptor, who 
should superintend the whole instruction of the youth committed to his care, and 
who, together with a board of overseers, should annually examine young gentlemen 
designed for schoolmasters in reading, writing, arithmetic, and English grammar, 
and if they are found qualified for the office of school-keeping and able to teach these 
branches with ease and propriety, to recommend them for this purpose. No man 
ought to be suffered to superintend ever so small a school except he has been first 
examined by a body of men of this character and authorized for this purpose. And 
I am sure it is no vanity in me to think that were our petty grammar schools anni- 
hilated and one established in each county as a substitute, instead of our common 
schools, kept by a set of ignoramuses, who obtrude themselves upon the people a 
few months at a time, without the requisite abilities or qualifications, we should have 
a worthy class of teachers, regularly introduced and examined, and should soon see 
the happy effects resulting from this noble plan. 

This recommendation is noteworthy for two reasons : In the first place, 
it recognizes the importance of institutions which have as one of their 



* Barnard says by Elisha Ticknor, but according to a writer in the fourth volume 

of Horace Mann's Common School Journal, that is a mere inference, probable, indeed, 

but by no means certain. 

9 



10 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

distinct objects the preparing of young gentlemen for " school-keeping; " 
in the second place, although the preparation contemplated is altogether 
in the line of scholarship, yet it is admitted by implication that such 
preparation is not all that is required, for the board of examiners are to 
examine them not only to ascertain whether " they are found qualified for 
the office of school-keeping" — i. e., so far as scholarship is concerned — but 
whether they are able to teach the branches they propose to teach with 
"ease and propriety." From the perception that scholarship is not all 
that is required to make a successful teacher, it is but a single step to 
the perception that the something more may, to a considerable extent, be 
acquired by special preparation. 

In 1816 Denison Olmstead, afterwards professor of natural philoso- 
phy and astronomy in Yale College, delivered an oration at the com- 
mencement exercises of that institution on "The State of Education in 
Connecticut." In this oration he outlined his plan of " an academy for 
schoolmasters," and stated the steps that led him to his conception. 
The following extract will explain it: 

My course as a teacher began with a small district school when I was 17 years of 
age and while fitting for college. I had there a full opportunity to become ac- 
quainted with the state of education as it existed in our village schools. On leav- 
ing college in 1813 I renewed the profession of teacher by taking charge of Union 
School at New London. This was a select school supported by a few of the first 
families of the place, who desired to obtain for their soils a superior training for 
business or for college, according to their destination in life. * * * The proprie- 
tors desiring to have their sons educated exclusively at that school after leaving the 
rudimentary female schools, introduced them at the early age of 8 or 9 years, and 
kept them there until they went to business or to college. The number was lim- 
ited to thirty, but the variety of age and the different professions in life for which 
they were destined occasioned an unusual range of studies. Some were in the spell- 
ing books, some in English grammar and geography; some in the languages, from 
Latin grammar to Virgil's Georgics and Xenophon's Anabasis, and some in different 
branches of mathematics, from simple arithmetic to algebra, surveying, and navi- 
gation. * * * 

I had here full opportunity of comparing the effect of different courses of study 
upon lads of similar age, and soon discovered a marked difference in intelligence and 
capacity between those who were studying the languages and mathematics prepar- 
atory to entering college, and devoted only a small portion of every day to the com- 
mon rudiments, as English grammar, geography, reading, writing, and spelling, and 
those who spent all their time in those elementary studies. I was surprised to find 
that the former excelled the latter even in the knowledge of these very studies. 
They read better, spelt better, wrote better, and were better versed in grammar and 
geography. One inference I drew from this observation was that an extended course 
of studies, proceeding far beyond the simple rudiments of an English education, is 
not only consistent with acquiring a good knowledge of those rudiments, but is highly 
favorable to it, since on account of the superior capacity developed by the higher 
branches of study the rudiments may be better learned in less time ; and a second 
inference was, that nothing was wanted in order to raise all our common branches to 
a far higher level, so as to embrace the elements of English literature, of the naturals 
sciences, and of the mathematics, but competent teachers and the necessary books. 

I was hence led to the idea of a "seminary for schoolmasters," to be established 
at the expense of the State, where the instruction, at least, should be gratuitous. 
It was to be under the direction of a principal and an assistant, the principal to be a 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 11 

man of liberal education, of a high order of talent, and an experienced and success- 
ful teacher. The assistant was to be well versed in the English branches of education 
at least. The course of study was to occupy from 1 to 2 years, and candidates were 
to be admitted only after an approved examination. The pupils were to study and 
recite whatever they were themselves afterwards to teach, partly for the purpose of 
acquiring a more perfect knowledge of these subjects, and partly of learning from 
the methods adopted by the principal the best modes of teaching. It was supposed 
that but a small portion of time would be required to be spent upon the simple rudi- 
ments, but that the greater part might be devoted to English grammar, and geogra- 
phy, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and such works as Blair's Rhetoric, studies 
adapted to improve the taste and make correct and accomplished writers. Ample 
instructions also were to be given by the principal on the organization and govern- 
ment of a school. 

This plan, it will be noted, distinctly recognizes the necessity of pro- 
fessional or extra- academic training. Intending teachers are to receive 
ample instructions " on the organization and government of a school." 

In 1823 Prof. James L. Kingsley, of Yale College, in an article on the 
u School Fund and the Common Schools of Connecticut," in the April 
number of the North American Be view, made the following suggestion : 

Let a superior school, intermediate between the common schools and the univer- 
sity, be maintained in each county of the State, where all of those who aspire to 
teach in the common schools may be themselves thoroughly instructed. Such a 
measure would give new vigor to the whole system of education. The board of 
visitors, which now decides on the qualifications of instructors, must be, in most 
instances, a very imperfect check on the intrusion of ignorance. The teachers, it is 
understood, have now very seldom any other preparation than they receive in the 
very school where they afterwards instruct, or in the school of some neighboring 
district, where the advantages for improvement are no better. 

In a pamphlet entitled " Suggestions on Education," published in 
August of the same year, William Russell,* then principal of an academy 
in New Haven, emphasized the importance of a seminary for teachers as 
follows : 

The common schools for children are, in not a few instances, conducted by indi- 
viduals who do not possess one of the qualifications of an instructor, and, in very 
many cases, there is barely knowledge enough to keep the teacher at a decent dis- 
tance from his scholars. An excellent suggestion was lately made on a branch of 
this subject by a writer in a periodical publication. [He is referring to Professor 
Kmgley's articles.] His proposal was that a seminary should be founded for the 
teachers of district schools; that a course of study should be prescribed to persons 
who are desirous of obtaining the situation of teachers in such schools; and that no 
individual should be accepted. as an instructor who has not received a license or 
degree from the proposed institution. The effects of such an improvement in edu- 
cation seem almost incalculable. The information, the intelligence, and the refine- 
ment which might thus be diffused among the body of the people would increase the 
prosperity, elevate the character, and promote the happiness of the nation to a 
degree perhaps unequaled in the world. 

But in March of that same year (1823) Mr. Samuel R. Hall took a 

* Mr. Russell was the first editor of the American Journal of Education. During 
the 3 years of his editorship he improved every opportunity to bring the subject of 
teachers' seminaries before his readers. 



12 TRAINING OF TEACHEKS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

decided step in advance by actually opening in Concord, Vt., a school 
for the training of teachers. Sent there as a preacher by the Domestic 
Missionary Society of Vermont, he consented to grant the request of 
the people to remain on condition that he be allowed to open a school 
for the benefit of intending teachers. He admitted a class of young 
pupils in order that he might illustrate his ideas as to the proper 
method of teaching and governing a school. Without a book or a 
periodical on the subject of education to guide him, he had to rely en- 
tirely on his own reflections and experience in his pedagogical instruc- 
tion. But in his first school, in Bethel, Me., in 1815, he showed his 
capacity in that direction. Soon after he took charge of it he attempted 
to introduce some improvements, among which was the writing of com- 
positions, a requirement which had never been heard of in a district 
school before by either teacher, pupils, or parents. The pupils objected 
and their parents took sides with them. Young Hall requested both 
parents and pupils to meet him and hear his reasons for believing in 
the practicability and usefulness of ,such an exercise. They came, and 
after he had stated his reasons he allowed his pupils to decide whether 
they would write them or not. When the appointed day arrived every 
one, among them a little girl of 11, had a composition written. A man 
of such resources and ability, with nearly 8 years of experience behind 
him, would be sure to have something to say on the subject of methods 
of teaching and governing, even without the aid of books. And so he 
prepared a series of talks, which some of his friends urged him to pub- 
lish. Acceding to their request, u Lectures on School Keeping" ap- 
peared in 1829. A first and second edition were soon exhausted, and 
soon after the superintendent of common schools in the State of New 
York ordered an edition of 10,000 copies for distribution to all the 
school districts of that State. About the same time the committee on 
education in the State of Kentucky recommended that every teacher 
in the State be supplied with a copy at the public expense. These 
facts indicate how widespread the feeling was getting to be that teach- 
ers need professional training. The book itself is of special interest to 
us, not only as the first book on the subject of teaching ever written in 
this country, but as enabling us to see the kind of instruction which 
the first students in what might fairly be called the first normal school 
received. It is a sound and sensible discussion of the art of teaching, 
which young teachers to-day could read with great profit.* 

* The following brief outline of its contents, published, in the fifth volume of Barnard's 
Journal, maybe of interest : Lecture I. Indifference to the importance, character, and 
usefulness of common schools ; its origin and influence. II. Obstacles to the usefulness 
of common schools. III. Requisite qualifications of teachers. IV. Nature of the teach- 
er's employment; responsibility of the teacher; importance of realizing and under- 
standing it. V. Gaining the confidence of the school; means of gaining it; the instructo, 
should be willing to spend all of his time when it can be rendered beneficial to the 
school. VI. Government of a school ; prerequisites ; manner of treating scholars ; uni- 
formity in government ; firmness. VII. Government, continued ; partiality J regard to 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 13 

Mr. Hall continued to teach in Concord until July, 1830. In Sep- 
tember of that year he opened an institution of the same sort in An- 
dover, and he remained in charge of it until 1837, when he opened 
another in Plymouth, which he conducted until 1840. 

James G-. Carter, called by Professor Emerson, the " Father of Normal 
Schools," and to whom, says Barnard, " more thar to any other one person, 
belongs the credit of having first arrested the attention of the leading 
minds of Massachusetts to the necessity of the immediate and thorough 
improvement in the system of free or public schools and of having 
clearly pointed out the most direct and thorough mode of procuring this 
improvement by providing for the training of competent teachers for 
these schools," elaborated his plan in a series of essays published in the 
Boston Patriot in the winter of 1824-25. The three characteristic fea- 
tures of the American normal school of to-day — a thorough grounding in 
the subjects the student is preparing to teach, a course of study upon 
the science and art of education, and a pracfrce school—these were the 
characteristics of the training school which Mr. Carter urged upon the 
people of Massachusetts. His plan attracted a great deal of attention. 
The leading newspapers all over the country called attention to it. The 
Literary Gazette published an able and favorable review of the essays, 
and in 1827 Professor Ticknor published an article based upon them in 
the North American Eeview. In 1827 he opened a school for the train- 
ing of teachers in Lancaster, and memorialized the Massachusetts leg- 
islature for aid. The committee to which his memorial was referred 
reported favorably, and a bill making an appropriation was lost by a 
single vote in the senate. The same year the people of the town of 
Lancaster appropriated a piece of land and gave him the use of a build- 
ing to assist him in carrying out his* plan, but not thoroughly compre- 
hending it, they soon began to throw obstacles in his way, so that he 
was obliged to abandon it, though he continued for many years to give 
instruction to private pupils, many of whom became successful teach- 
ers. At the first session of the American Institute of Instruction, 
which he assisted in founding, he delivered a lecture on " The Develop- 
ment of the Intellectual Faculties," and at the next, one on "The Neces- 
sity and Most Practicable Means of Eaising the Qualifications of Teach- 
ers." In 1835 he was elected a member of the legislature, and in 1836, 
as chairman of the committee on education, he urged the establishment 
of a seminary for the professional training of teachers. In 1837 he 
drew the bill providing for the State board of education, and in 1838 his 

the future as well as present welfare of the scholars ; mode of intercourse between 
teacher and scholars, and between scholars ; punishments ; rewards. VIII. General 
management of a school; direction of studies. IX. Mode of teaching; manner of 
illustrating subjects; spelling; reading. X. Arithmetic, geography, English gram- 
mar, writing, history. XI. Composition; general subjects not particularly studied; 
importance of improving opportunities when deep impressions are made on the 
minds of the school. XII. Means^of exciting the attention of scholars ; such as are 
to be avoided; such as are safely used. XIII. To female instructors. 



14 TEAINING OF TEACHERS IN THW UNITED STATES. 

speeches probably turned the scale in favor of the passage of the normal- 
school act. 

On the 4th of January, 1825, Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet published 
the -first of a series of essays on a "Plan of a Seminary for the Educa- 
tion of the Instructors of Youth." These essays were published in a 
pamphlet in Boston the same year, and attracted a good deal of atten- 
tion in New England generally. The newspapers published selections 
from them and the plan was discussed in the educational conventions 
which met in Hartford in 1828 and 1830. They were abridged and pub- 
lished in the "Annals of Education" in 1831 and in the Common 
School Journal in 1838. The following extract from the abridgment 
will give a clear idea of his plan : 

Let an institution be established in every State for the express purpose of training 
for the profession of instructors of youth in the common branches of an English edu- 
cation. Let it be so well endowed by the liberality of the public, or of individuals, 
as to have two or three professors, men of talents and habits adapted to the pursuit, 
who should devote their lives to the object of the " theory and practice " of the educa- 
tion of youth, and who should prepare and deliver and print a course of lectures on 
the subject. Let the institution be furnished with a library which shall contain all 
the works, theoretical and practical, in all languages that can be obtained on the sub- 
ject of education, and also with all the apparatus that modern ingenuity has devised 
for this purpose, such as maps, charts, globes, orreries, etc. 

Let there be connected with the institution a school, smaller or larger, as circum- 
stances might dictate, in which the theories of the professors might be reduced to 
practice, and from which daily experience would derive a thousand useful instruc- 
tions. 

To such an institution let young men resort who are ready to devote themselves to 
the business of instructors of youth. Let them attend a regular course of lectures 
on the subject of education, read the best works, take their turns in the instruction 
of the experimental school, and after thus becoming qualified for their office leave 
the institution with a suitable certificate or diploma recommending them to the con- 
fidence of the public. 

The same year (1825) Walter E. Johnson, of Germantown, Pa., pub- 
lished a pamphlet of 28 pages entitled " Observations on the Improve- 
ment of Seminaries of Learning in the United States; with Suggestions 
for its Accomplishment." The principal suggestions for the improve- 
ment of schools was the establishment of schools for teachers. The fol- 
lowing extract contains the essential features of his plan : 

It is proposed to afford, by the institutions in question, an opportunity to those who 
are designed for teachers of making themselves theoretically and practically ac- 
quainted with the duties which they will be called upon to discharge before they 
enter upon the performance of their trusts. In order, however, to afford illustrations 
of the principles of education it is indispensable that practice should be added to 
precept, and that, too, in situations favorable to the operations of those causes which 
display both the powers of the mind and the peculiarities of the several departments 
of science and art. The school for teachers, then, ought not to be an insulated estab- 
lishment, but to be connected with some institution where an extensive range in the 
sciences is taken, and where pupils of different classes are pursuing the various de- 
partments of education adapted to their respective ages. The practice of superin- 
tending, of arranging into classes, instructing and governing, ought to form one part 
of the duty of the young teacher, The attending of lectures on the science of men- 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 15 

tal development and the various collateral topics should constitute another. An 
extensive course of reading and study of authors who have written with ability and 
practical good sense on the subject would be necessary in order to expand the mind 
and free it from those prejudices which on this subject are apt to adhere even to 
those persons who fancy themselves furthest removed from their influence. * * * 
That class of prejudices in particular which arises from a disposition to form or adopt 
fanciful theories not reducible to practice would be corrected by reading the kind of 
authors here recommenced, and the same effect would be insured by adhering in the 
choice of lecturers to those who, added to a truly philosophical character, have 
possessed an extensive experience in the duties of instruction. Should it be neces- 
sary there might also be provision for the pursuit of other sciences in addition to that 
of teaching by those who are preparing for that office. A perfect plan for the educa- 
tion of teachers and professors would require that the institution with which the 
school for teachers is proposed to be connected should embrace a complete circle of 
the sciences and arts, and that a professor should be appointed to lecture on the mode 
of teaching in each separate department. 

But the expense makes that impracticable, so he thinks that — 

It would be desirable, at least for the present, to extend the plan no further than 
to comprehend — 

I. A course of lectures and practical illustrations on the subject of intellectual 
philosophy, as connected with the science of education. 

II. A course on physical education. 

III. On the mode of conveying instruction in the exact and physical sciences, and 
the various descriptive and mechanic arts. 

IV. On the manner of teaching languages, belles-lettres, history, and, in general, 
all those branches commonly classed under the philological department. 

* * * The first course would embrace the subjects of resemblances and differ- 
ences in the capacities of different individuals ; the proper season for developing each 
faculty ; the kind of study adapted to produce that development ; the intermixture 
of different pursuits suitable to store and discipline the mind at different ages; the 
anomalies of talent which have been noticed or recorded, and their causes so far as 
known; the influence of moral causes upon the intellectual character of youth ; and, 
in general, the effects of all the various departments of science, literature, and arts, 
and of the different modes of presenting them to the mind, towards perfecting the 
human understanding and character. 

The second of the above-mentioned courses would include all that relates to the 
management of infancy, the personal habits, form, physiognomy, and health of chil- 
dren and youth, and their different capabilities of learning, so far as affected or in- 
dicated by these circumstances; the manners, exercises, amusements, indulgences of 
young persons, especially when employed in their education ; the time and manner 
of attending to study, conveniences for private study and public recitation ; arrange- 
ment of class rooms for different purposes, to be illustrated by drawings ; the main- 
tenance of order and expedients for enforcing it, together with the nature and appli- 
cation of stimulants, rewards, and punishments, and the temper, language, and gen- 
eral demeanor of instructors. 

The last course would comprise directions to professors and teachers in a great 
diversity of branches, including not only the subjects usually taught at seminaries 
of learning, but also those which pertain to the several learned professions. Among 
these may be mentioned rhetorical reading, composition, logic, metaphysics, foreign 
and learned languages, history, chronology, law, theology, and medicine. 

The auditors ought to receive advice and instruction from the lecturers in respect 
to their course of reading on the several topics presented in the lectures, and be 
arrauged and taught as their own pupils are to be afterwards, in classes according 
to their several capacities and attainments. As the auditors are supposed to be en- 



16 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

gaged a part of their time in the practice of instructing, it will become the duty of 
the lecturers to attend and observe their mode of conducting the exercises of their 
respective classes, and to comment upon it at subsequent lectures ; affording to all 
an opportunity for free discussion and candid interchange of opinions on every topic 
arising out of the practice of a teacher. The course here marked out might probably, 
with the time taken up in practical teaching, occupy at least one year, and at the 
expiration of that time a certificate might be given to each individual, stating the 
length of time he had employed, the qualifications he had exhibited, and the success 
he had attained in the several branches of instruction. It is, however, presumed 
that in this case the candidates for approbation had come to the institution well- 
grounded in all those branches of learning of which they proposed to become teachers ; 
otherwise, a longer time might be required. In the former case, the instructions 
given them by lecturers on education would have for their object to render them 
more familiar with the several subjects, by frequent and careful revisions. In ad- 
dition to this, some well-digested treatise on the subject of education might be 
selected and studied — recitations being conducted after the manner of those in history 
or ethics. The lecturers might further be serviceable to the cause of education by • 
establishing and conducting, on liberal and philosophical principles, a journal to be 
devoted to that subject, and to embrace such kinds and varieties of objects as might 
render it instructing and entertaining to youth, to parents, and to instructors.* 

I make this long quotation not only because it illustrates the shape 
the normal idea was taking in the minds of the leading educators of 
the time, but because of the high ideal of professional training and 
culture which it sets forth. Few, indeed, are the principals of normal 
schools and the professors of pedagogy who would not find it worth 
while to give it careful study. It is more than doubtful if any institu- 
tion in the country has realized so high an ideal as that conceived by 
this young Pennsylvania principal in the year 1825. 

The same year Dr. Philip Lindsley, in an address which he delivered 
on assuming the presidency of Cumberland College, in Nashville, Tenn., 
advocated a teacher's seminary, urging that a teacher needs training 
for his work as imperatively as the lawyer and doctor. The next year 
he plead for seminaries for teachers before the legislature of Tennessee. 

In 1826 Governor De Witt Clinton, in his message to the legislature 
of the State of New York, recommended the establishment of a semi- 
nary for teachers, and the same year Hon. John C. Spencer made an 
able report on the same subject in the senate of that State. 

In 1826, and again in 1827, Governor Lincoln, of Massachusetts, in 
his annual message, urged upon the legislature the importance of mak- 
ing provision for the training of teachers. 

In 1833 Dr. George Junkin, president of Lafayette College, wrote a 
letter to Mr. Samuel Breck, chairman of the joint committee of the leg- 
islature on education, recommending the providing in existing colleges 
of a course for teachers, the common school of the town to serve as a 
school of daily observation and practice. Eev. Chauncey Colton, presi- 
dent of Bristol College, recommended substantially the same plan in a 
letter of the same date to the same committee. 

The next year Samuel Breck urged upon the legislature the engraft- 



* He advocaxed the same plan before a committee of the legislature in 1833. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 17 

ing of a " teacher's course " in existing colleges and academies, and the 
establishment of " model schools n in connection with them. 

In October, 1836, a public meeting in Philadelphia, called to consider 
the condition and improvement of institutions of public instruction in 
Pennsylvania, recommended a " plan for a teachers' seminary and for 
a board of public instruction." The plan was based on the teachers' 
seminaries of Prussia and France and Mr. Hall's seminary at Andover. 
It proposed an independent institution, a 3-years' course of study, with 
opportunities for practice in a model school. 

The same year Thomas M. Burrowes, secretary of state and ex officio 
superintendent of common schools, in his report to the legislature, urged 
that body to appropriate $10,000 for the establishment of two institu- 
tions, one in each end of the State, under the care of two of the col- 
leges, for the preparation of common-school teachers. The next year 
he repeated his recommendation for provision for training of teachers, 
but suggested that the institutions should not be attached to any col- 
lege, and that they should devote themselves exclusively to the prepa- 
ration of teachers. In his next report his suggestion takes the form of 
an emphatic recommendation; and he recommends, also, that the model 
schools be composed of the brightest pupils, admitted free from all parts 
of the State. 

In 1827 the American Institute of Instruction memorialized the leg- 
islature of Massachusetts, praying that provision be made for the 
better preparation of the teachers of the schools of the Commonwealth. 

This brief survey enables us to see how prevalent the feeling was 
getting to be that teachers need thorough professional training, when 
the first normal school was opened in Massachusetts in 1839. Born, 
so to speak, in this country not far from 1820, the normal idea had 
grown so rapidly and been so prolific that it was in a fair way to be- 
come the common property of educated minds when that little group 
of three pupils met at the opening of the first normal school in Lexing- 
ton. How shall we account for these facts % How shall we explain 
this sudden perception of a state of things which in truth had existed 
for a long time without attracting anybody's attention? What were 
the influences which led men to turn their eyes in a direction in which 
they had never looked before, and consequently to see what they had 
never seen before? 

One of them, undoubtedly, was the teachers' seminaries in Europe, 
particularly in Prussia. The idea that teachers need professional 
training was indeed very old in Europe in 1820. Originated by Mul- 
caster in England in 1561, it was bodiless, so to speak, without an in- 
stitution in which to live, until La Salle founded his school at ELeims 
in 1681, which he developed in 1684 into the Institute of the Brothers 
of the Christian Schools. But professional schools for the training of 
teachers lived a very precarious life in Europe for a long time. After 
the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the next one was 
4890— No. 8 2 



18 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

founded by Augustus Hermann Francke. In 1697 he formed a teachers' 
class, composed of poor students, in connection with his orphan school 
at Halle, who gave him certain assistance in return for their board and 
tuition. In 1704 he selected twelve of these because of their piety, 
knowledge, and aptness to teach, and constituted them his " Seminarium 
Prseeeptoruin," or " Teacher's Seminary." Not till 31 years after — 
in 1735 — was the first regular seminary for teachers established in 
Pomerania, Prussia, by Hecker, a pupil of Francke, and the second at 
Berlin, as a private school, in 1748. In 1754 Frederick the Great raised 
it to the rank of a royal primary school for the education of teachers 
and parish clerks, and the same year he directed that all of both these 
classes, appointed by the crown, should be selected from the students 
of this institution. But the Seven Years' War, which broke out soon 
after, absorbed all his energies, and he seems to have given no more 
attention to the subject of normal schools during the rest of his reign. 
Shortly after his death the French revolution began, and in the terrible 
struggle with France which followed it, Prussia had neither time nor 
money to devote to institutions for the training of teachers. But after 
the battle of Jena, in 1806, when she was drinking to the dregs the cup 
of humiliation, it occurred to some of her leading men that the regen- 
eration of the nation Was to be sought in education. Accordingly, in 
1808, the education department was made a section of the home office, 
and William von Humboldt was placed at the head of it. " The thing 
is not" said he about this time, "to let the schools and universities go 
on in a drowsy and impotent routine ; the thing is to raise the culture 
of the nation ever higher and higher by this means."* When such a 
spirit animated the head of the department of education,! we may be 
sure that no pains would be spared to give teachers thorough prepa- 
ration for their work, and so in 1819 the present system of state normal 
schools was established in Prussia. 

This brief sketch of the history of training schools for teachers in 
Europe enables us to see how it was that although they had been estab- 
lished in Europe nearly a century and a half before, they did not begin 
to attract the attention of American educators until towards the close 
of the first quarter of this century. Up to 1819 they lived a very re- 
tired and precarious life. But when they became a part of the school 
system of one of the great states of Europe, they naturally attracted 
the attention of educators all over the world. Professor Johnson alludes 
to them in his pamphlet which was published in 1825. " Travels in the 
North of Germany in 1825-26," written by Henry E. Dwight, and pub- 
lished in New York in 1829, contained an account of the Prussian 
seminaries for teachers, and urged their establishment in this country. 

* See Matthew Arnold's " Higher Schools and Universities in Germany," p. 46. 

t He remained at the head of the department but one year and a half, bnt in that 
time he seems to have exerted a lasting influence on the educational institutions of 
Prussia. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 19 

In 1829 Mr. YToodbridge, afterwards editor of "Annals of Educa- 
tion. 1 ' was planning, with the assistance of Mr. Gallaudet, the estab- 
lishment of a teachers' seminary in Hartford, after the Prussian model. 
In 1831, as editor of the "Annals," he remarked that " in those of the 
countries of Europe where education has taken its rank as a science, it 
is almost as singular to question the importance of a preparatory semi- 
nary for teachers, as of a medical school for physicians ; " and in the June 
number of the same journal, the same year, he published an account of 
the Prussian seminaries for teachers, translated from a German period- 
ical. In 1835 J. Orville Taylor, of Xew York, published a translation 
of Cousin's " Report on Public Instruction in Germany." In August of 
the same year, Mr. George S. Hilliard read a paper before the American 
Institute of Instruction on "Public Instruction in Prussia," prepared 
by Miss Eliza Robbins from Cousin's report, which was published the 
next year by Key & Biddle, of Philadelphia, in a duodecimo volume 
of 180 pages, with accounts of the normal schools at Potsdam, Stettin. 
and Hastadie. 

But unquestionably, the man who did most to disseminate the knowl- 
edge of the Prussian teachers' seminaries among the people of Massa- 
chusetts and Xew England, and to convince them of their fundamental 
importance, was Mr. Charles Brooks. In the summer of 1831 he became 
thoroughly acquainted with the Prussian system through Dr. H. Julius, 
of Hamburg, and, to use his own language, he fell in love with it. and 
" resolved to do something about State normal schools." Cousin, whom 
he knew personally, and to whom he made known his plans, approved 
of them heartily and sent hiin his histories of the Prussian, Hollandaise, 
and Bavarian systems of education, and especially normal schools. He 
made a thorough study of them, and so in 1835 he felt that lie was 
ready to begin his campaign. Accordingly, in a Thanksgiving sermon, 
delivered to the people of Hingham, he explained the Prussian sys- 
tem of state normal schodls, declaring his opinion that it was " to make 
a new era in the public elementary education of the United States." 

He prepared three " enormously long lectures," in the first describing 
minutely the Prussian state system; in the second, showing how it could 
be adopted in Massachusetts, and how it would effect every town, every 
school, and every family in the State ; in the third, showing that all these 
results could be realized by establishing State normal schools and could 
not be realized without them. 

Without consulting with anyone outside of his own family he issued 
a circular, under his own name, to the inhabitants of Plymouth County, 
explaining his plans and inviting the friends of school reform to convene 
in Plymouth, in court week, to consider the matter. He sent copies of 
this circular to every board of selectmen, every school committee, and 
every clergyman in the county, and requested the clergymen to read it 
to their congregations the following Sunday. The result was that a very 
large audience met him at the appointed time and place, and so powerful 



20 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

was the impression which he made that Ichabod Morton, esq., arose and 
said: 

Mr. President, I am glad to see this day. The work is -well begun. The mass of 
facts now presented to us so plainly proves conclusively the inestimable value of 
teachers' seminaries. Mr. Brooks says he wants the first one established in the old 
colony, and so do I, sir, and I will give $1,000 toward its establishment. 

Mr. Brooks had a notice of this offer published in every newspaper in 
Massachusetts. He called and attended numerous conventions. He 
gave public notice (in 1836) that he would lecture on the Prussian sys- 
tem of elementary instruction anywhere in the State, upon condition 
that he would not under any circumstances receive any compensation 
for his lectures or traveling expenses. In response to this notice invita- 
tions "rushed in from every part of Massachusetts," and he set out upon 
his missionary tour, riding in his chaise over 2,000 miles in the course 
of the next two years. In addition to his lectures and speeches he " kept 
up as constant a succession of articles in the newspapers" as he could. 
In response to a unanimous request by the house of representatives he 
delivered two of his lectures before them in January, 1837, and urged 
immediate action. He lectured also before the legislatures of Vermont, 
New Hampshire, Maine, and New Jersey, and in the principal cities and 
towns of these and other States. 

In 1836 the legislature of the State of Ohio requested Prof. Calvin E. 
Stowe to act as its agent in visiting European, and particularly Prus- 
sian, schools. In his report, he gave a full description of the teachers' 
seminaries of Prussia, and urged their establishment in Ohio. His re- 
port was published in 1837, and was republished by the legislatures of 
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Michigan. 
Professor Bache, of Girard College, also visited the schools of Europe 
in 1836, and upon his return published a volume of 600 pages on "Eu- 
ropean Educational Institutions," the ninth chapter of which he devoted 
to " Seminaries for the Education of Teachers, for Primary Schools." In 
1835 Dr. Julius 7 outline of the Prussian system of educating teachers 
was published with the legislative documents of Massachusetts and 
New York.* 

But although European, and particularly Prussian, institutions ex- 
erted a powerful influence in developing and diffusing the normal idea 
in this country it is tolerably certain that the idea in this country was 
not in the first place borrowed from Europe. Erom Denison Olmstead's 
account of how he came to think of his plan of "An Academy for School- 
masters" it is evident that in 1816 he had no knowledge of similar in- 
stitutions in Europe. It is altogether improbable, also, that Samuel E. 
Hall knew anything about them when he opened the first school for the 
training of teachers in this country. Mr. Woodbridge said that Mr. 

*It was originally published in Massachusetts along with the report of the com- 
mittee on education recommending the establishment of a school for the training of 
teachers. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 21 

Gallaudet's essay on this subject, published, it Avill be remembered, iu 
1825, " arose from his own reflections without any knowledge of foreign 
institutions of this kind."* These facts seem to show that what the 
influence of European training schools accomplished was to strengthen 
and accelerate a movement which had an independent origin. 

Its origin, I believe, was due to the increased attention which men 
were giving to the subject of education, and to their reflections upon 
the means of making it more universal. It is hardly an exaggeration 
to say that the party which had charge of the Government for the first 
12 years of our national existence did not believe in a democratic form 
of government. Hamilton wanted an aristocratic republic, and, failing 
in that, he endeavored by his financial policy to bring the wealth of the 
country to the support of the Government. He did not believe in the 
capacity of the people for self-government. " The people," he is reported 
to have said at a dinner, "the people is a great beast." The whole 
strength of his wonderful genius was exerted in devising ways and 
means for making a stronger government than the rramers of the Con- 
stitution intended to make, in order that it might be strong enough to 
hold the people in check. 

As was Alexander Hamilton, so was the Federalist party. Accept- 
ing a republican form of government rather as a necessity than as a 
thing in itself desirable, the able men of the party had little interest in 
plans for educating the masses of the people, because they felt them to 
be inherently impracticable, and necessarily visionary. 

But there were much stronger reasons which prevented thoughtful 
men from giving that attention to education in the first 25 years of our 
national existence which its importance in general, and particularly in 
a republican form of government, demands. The people of the thirteen 
States accepted the Constitution of 1787, not because they wanted to, 
but because they had to. Necessity, stern and implacable, presented 
them the alternatives of a stronger government or anarchy. "The 
Constitution," says John Quincy Adams, "was extorted from the grind- 
ing necessities of a reluctant people." Uniting thus through necessity, 
it is safe to say that the vast majority of the people of both parties had 
very great doubts as to the permanence of the Union. "When the 
Constitution was adopted by the votes of States at Philadelphia," says 
Henry Cabot Lodge, "and accepted by the votes of States in popular 
conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country 
from Washington and Hamilton on the one side, to George Clinton and 
George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system as anything 
but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each 
and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which 
was very likely to be exercised." t With such feelings as to the per- 
manence of the Union, men were not likely to spend their energies in 

* See Annals of Education, vol. I, p. 24. 

t Daniel Webster, by Henry Cabot Lodge, page 176. 



22 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

devising ways and means for strengthening the Government which 
would only bear fruit in the remote future. As a man who rents a farm 
for a year is not likely to trouble himself to set out an orchard for some 
one else to reap the benefits of, so the- men of that time, even those 
most ardently devoted to the Union, found their interest rather in 
strengthening the Government in the immediate future, than in occupy- 
ing themselves with plans that could only bear fruit after the lapse of 
a generation. 

Moreover, the bitterness of party passion and the intensity of party 
conflicts absorbed men's energies for the first 25 years of our national 
history. Divided for the first four years on financial questions, and for 
the next twenty on questions of foreign policy, the two parties fought 
each other with a bitterness rarely equaled and certainly never excelled 
during the whole course of our history. 

But with the close of the war of 1812 a new era dawned. Then the 
belief in the capacity of the people for self-government first became the 
creed of the nation and not of a few advanced thinkers only like Jeffer- 
son. The Democratic party — the only party practically for 18 years 
after the war of 1812 — through the influence largely of such men as 
Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun* had become a national party. With 
no questions of importance as to foreign policy to distract their atten- 
tion, patriotic and philanthropic men were left free to give their thoughts 
to questions for elevating the masses of the people, and fitting them for 
the responsible task of self-government. A genuine national patriotism 
had been born, and with the love of the whole country came the desire 
for the perpetuity of the Union. This naturally led to reflections upon 
the means of making it perpetual. The result was what has well been 
called the " revival of education." t 

Perhaps the movement in the direction of the professional training 
of teachers will be better understood if we glance rapidly at some of 
the leading phases of this revival. Note, first, the number of States 
which established or revised their public school systems about this 
time: Kentucky, in 1821 and 1828; Maine, in 1821; Alabama, in 1823; 
Maryland, Wisconsin, and Ohio, in 1828; Connecticut, New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Ehode Island, New York, Virginia, 
Delaware, and South Carolina, in 1827 and 1828.f 

New York pro vided State supervision of schools in 1812 ; Maryland 
in 1823 (the office was abolished after two years) ; Vermont in 1827 ; 
Pennsylvania in 1834; Michigan in 1836; Massachusetts, Kentucky, 
and Ohio in 1837; and Missouri and Connecticut in 1839.§ 

In 1826 the first educational journal in the English language, the 
American Journal of Education, was published in Boston, edited by 

* See Von Hoist's Calhoun. 

t The Revival of Education. An address to the Normal Association, Bridgewater, 
Mass., August 8, 1855, by Rev. Samuel J. May, Syracuse, N. Y. 
X See Barnard's Journal of Education, vol n, p. 20. 
§ See pages 161-2 of "Education in the United States," by Richard G. Boone. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 23 

William C. Woodbridge. In 1837 Horace Mann started the Massa- 
chusetts Common School Journal, and the next year a similar paper 
was published and edited in Connecticut by Henry Barnard. From 
1836 to 1840 J. Orville Taylor edited and published the Common School 
Assistant in New York. 

In 1827 a Society for the Improvement of Common Schools was formed 
in Hartford. In 1828 the Pennsylvania society for the same purpose 
was organized. In 1829 the " Western Academic Institute and Board 
of Education" was organized in Cincinnati for the diffusion of knowl- 
edge concerning education, and for the improvement of the qualifica- 
tions of teachers. In 1830 the American Institute of Instruction was 
organized in Boston for a the diffusion of useful knowledge in regard to 
education." In 1838 the American Common School Society was estab- 
lished in New York "for the extension and improvement of education 
in primary schools in the United States." 

These are a few out of very many ways in which the new and deeper 
interest in education was manifesting itself: Governors were consider- 
ing the subject of education in their messages; members of legislatures 
and of city councils were discussing it; primary schools were being 
established-, schools for girls were being multiplied; text-books were 
being improved ; conventions in town, county, and State were being held ; 
in a word, there was a universality and an intensity of interest in the 
subject of education such as this country had never seen before. 

But there was one form in which this interest manifested itself which 
deserves fuller consideration because it shows very clearly the concep- 
tions of education which prevailed at that time, and because it gave a 
powerful impulse to the movement for the professional training of 
teachers. 

I allude to the organization of schools on the Lancasterian or moni- 
torial plan. This movement was, indeed, in its earlier stages the fore- 
runner of the more general interest of which I have been speaking. 
The Lancasterian system was introduced into this* country in the early 
part of this century. For many years it was almost universally adopted 
in the larger cities — for example, in New York, Albany, Hartford, New 
Haven, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. In 1820 there were 
twenty Lancasterian schools in the State of New York alone. High 
hopes were entertained of the system by very able men. De Witt 
Clinton, than whom few public men paid more attention to education 
or did more to advance its cause, said in 1810 : 

I confess that I recognize in Lancaster the benefactor of the human race. I con- 
sider his system as creating a new era in education, as a blessing sent down from 
heaven to redeem the ppor and distressed of this world from the power and domin- 
ion of ignorance. 

Again, in his message to the legislature of the State of New York in 
1818, he said: 

Having participated in the first establishment of the Lancasterian system in this 
country, having carefully observed its progress and witnessed its benefits, I can 



24 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

confidently recommend it as an invaluable improvement, Avliich, by a wonderful 
combination of economy in expense and rapidity of instruction, has created a new 
era in education. And I am desirous that all our common schools should be supplied 
with teachers of this description. 

Becurring to the subject in his message of 1820, he said: 

There are probably twenty schools in the State conducted on the Lancasterian sys- 
tem exclusively, and several others which follow it partially, but not so far as to 
give it a distinctive character. In some of these establishments several young men 
have lately been instructed as Lancasterian teachers, and it is to be hoped that this 
system will be carried into the most extensive operation. There are now npon an 
average about 50 scholars for every schoolmaster under the present plan of the com- 
mon schools, and whether the number be great or small, the introduction of the 
Lancasterian method is of importance, for, admitting in all cases the competency of 
the teacher to attend to all his pupils, yet when we consider the rapidity of acquir- 
ing instruction under that system, and reflect on the useful habits it forms and the 
favorable impression which it makes on the minds and the morals of those who par- 
ticipate in its benefits, we can not hesitate to give it a decided preference. 

President Nott, of Union College, in an address to the students of 
that institution in 1811, said "Where is Lancaster, who has introduced 
and is introducing a new era in education?" 

John Adams wrote to a friend, after hearing Lancaster, who made a 
lecturing tour in this country in 1818, "I have heard friend Lancaster; 
he is an excellent scholastic and academic disciplinarian. I was really 
delighted and enlightened by that lecture." 

It is hardly necessary to point out that the hopes entertained of Lan- 
casterian schools were based on two misconceptions: (1) That teaching 
consists in imparting knowledge; and (2) that all that is necessary to 
impart this knowledge is simply to know as much as is to be imparted. 
Dr. Bell said, " Give me 24 pupils to-day and I will give you back 24 
teachers to-morrow." 

The attempt to embody these false opinions into institutions, and the 
attention given to, and the discussion of, these institutions undoubtedly 
helped men to see tke true nature of education, and to realize the true 
function of the teacher. In discussing the chapter on Monitors in John 
Wood's " Account of the Edinburgh Sessional School," etc., the editor 
of "Annals of Education" said: 

That this system is not the very best Mr. Wood himself allows, and observes, "that 
to say that a boy makes a better teacher than a man would be manifestly absurd." 
That he is competent to the important task of an educator can never be supposed. 
In developing the faculties and forming the character of a child ; in devising the 
best means of counteracting evil habits already acquired, and, if possible, of eradicat- 
ing them and substituting good ones in their stead ; in inventing expedients for draw- 
ing forth exertion accommodated to various dispositions and eccentricities of mind ; 
in furnishing illustrations of the principles to be enforced or of the knowledge to be 
communicated, drawn from objects level to the youthful capacity and suited to the 
various forms of inquiry, perplexity, and doubt; in knowing how to interest the 
inattentive, to arouse the sluggish, to allure the wavering, to encourage the timid, 
to aid the slow, to guide the impetuous, and to awe the wayward ; and, what is of more 
consequence than all, in exercising that secret moral and religious influence over the 
gradually developing character of the pupil, which the looks, the tones of voice, the 



BEGINNINGS OF THE NORMAL IDEA. 25 

whole deportment of the teacher serve to produce quite as much as the precepts 
which he utters in the accomplishment of these objects, the great ones to be secured 
in the education of youth, how can a young monitor for a moment be put into com- 
petition with an adult and experienced teacher ? Hence arise the doubts of those who 
wish to see our schools places of thorough, parental education as well as instruction ; 
and hence we would be cautious in recommending to universal adoption a system 
which is so often rendered mechanical — a mere machine for saving labor to the 
teacher and money to the parents by the indolence or error of those who employ it.* 

We see here a very just and comprehensive idea of the true nature of 
education; a vivid realization that instruction is not education; and a 
clear perception that even for purposes of instruction a skilled teacher 
is required, one who can adapt his illustrations to the knowledge and 
capacity of his pupils. It is easy to see how reflection upon the moni- 
torial system might have helped Mr. Woodbridge to realize the miscon- 
ception upon which it was based. Horace Mann said : 

One must see the difference between the hampering, blinding, misleading instruc- 
tion given by an inexperienced child and the developing, transforming, and almost 
creative power of an accomplished teacher — one must rise to some comprehension of 
the vast import and significance of the phrase "to educate" — before he can regard 
with a sufficiently energetic contempt that boast of Dr. Bell, "Give me 24 pupils 
to-day and I will give you back 24 teachers to-morrow, t 

Evidently the discussion of the merits of the monitorial system helped 
to pave the way for the perception that teachers need professional train- 
ing. It was one of the causes that induced men to carefully consider 
the questions, What are the qualifications of a successful teacher ? the 
answer to which was inevitably followed by another, How can they 
acquire these qualifications f 

In England we can trace the development of training schools out of 
the Lancasterian schools step by step. As it was difficult to secure and 
retain trained monitors, it occurred to the head master to have some of 
the most promising of the monitors taught out of school hours. This 
was the beginning of the pupil-teacher system, which is a prominent 
feature of English schools to-day. To retain them after a certain amount 
of experience it was found necessary to pay them a small salary. Later 
the senior and most successful monitors were organized into a normal 
class with a prescribed course of study, the successful completion of 
which qualified them to become the heads of schools. Some monitors 
were still employed earning admission to this normal class by acquir- 
ing the skill which fitted them to enter it, precisely as they are in the 
English schools to-day.| 

* See pp. 135-136 of the " Annals of Education," for the year 1831. 
t The Massachusetts Common School Journal, vol. 6, p. 99. 
t See Education, vol. I, p. 273. 



CHAPTEE II. 

TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE ACADEMIES OF NEW YORK UP 

TO 1844. 

We have seen in the preceding chapter that that eminent statesman, 
DeWitt Clinton, was greatly interested in the subject of education. 
In his message as governor to the legislature of New York in 1826 he 
recommended the establishment of a " seminary for the education of 
teachers."* 

But John 0. Spencer, chairman of the literature committee of the sen- 
ate, unfortunately was of a different opinion. He accordingly prepared 
a report containing the following words : 

But in the view which the committee have taken our great reliance for nurseries 
of teachers must be placed in our colleges and academies. In connection with these 
the committee admit that the establishment of a separate institution for the sole pur- 
pose of preparing teachers would be a most valuable auxiliary. 

But though it would be " a most valuable auxiliary," they were evi- 
dently of the opinion that it could be dispensed with, as they did not 
recommend its establishment, because other measures of a more press- 
ing nature would entail as much expense as it seemed safe to incur. 

The truth is that Governor Clinton was far in advance of even the 
educated public opinion of the State. The prevailing opinion was that 
such an institution was unnecessary, as the academies were regarded as 
the proper institutions for preparing teachers. ' The board of regents of 
the university in their annual report to the legislature in 1821, in speak- 
ing of the academies, had said, "It is to these seminaries that we must 
look for a supply of teachers for the common schools," and in their an- 
nual report in 1823 they say that the distribution to the academies sub- 
ject to their visitation of the funds under their direction " insures a sup- 
ply of competent teachers." 

Although the question as to what provision could be made for the 
proper preparation of teachers had often been discussed by the educa- 
tional committees of the legislature, the first law on the subject was 
passed April 13, 1827. It was entitled "An act to provide permanent 
funds for the annual appropriation to common schools, to increase the 
literature fund, and to promote the education of teachers." 

Notwithstanding the last clause, the law made no special provision 
for the education of teachers. The law simply provided for an increase 

*The phrase "seminary for the education of teachers" indicates that Governor 
Clinton was acquainted with the teachers' seminaries of Europe. 
26 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 27 

in the literature fund, and required a higher standard of scholarship in 
those academies to which the fund was to be distributed. The idea 
definitely stated in Mr. Spencer's report in 1826 — that no special insti- 
tutions were required for the training of teachers — was evidently at the 
bottom of this law. The committee which reported the bill stated in 
their report that their object in thus increasing' the fund was "to pro- 
mote the education of young men in those studies which will prepare 
them for the business of instruction, which it is hoped may be accom- 
plished to some extent by offering inducements to the trustees of acad- 
emies to educate pupils of that description. * * * Competent 
teachers of common schools must be provided; the academies of the State 
furnish the means of making that provision." In 1828 the regents said : 
"The academies have become, in the opinion of the regents, what it has 
always been desirable they should be, fit seminaries for imparting 
instruction in the higher branches of English education, and especially 
for qualifying teachers of common schools." The same year Azariah 
Flagg, secretary of state and superintendent of common schools, said : 
"If the required information to fit a person for teaching can be obtained 
in the academies, sound policy and good economy are in favor of relying 
upon them for the training of teachers." He evidently thought that the 
required information could be obtained there, for in his report to the 
legislature in 1831, after reviewing various proposed plans, he recom- 
mended the academies of the State as the proper institutions to train 
teachers. 

But owing to causes which I have tried to explain in the preceding 
chapter, the feeling was getting abroad that a teacher needs distinctive 
professional training. Eecognizing this fact, without waiting for legis- 
lative action, the academies of the State about this time began to take 
steps to supply the demand. In their report to the board of regents in 
1831, Oanandaigua and St. Lawrence Academies report "principles 
of teaching]' as one of the studies pursued. The next year Lowville and 
Oxford Academies reported classes in the "principles of teaching," 
and the reports in 1834 showed that a fifth institution, the Rochester 
High School, was attempting to give teachers specific professional train- 
ing for their work. 

The action of these academies, together with their reports on this 
subject, and the constantly deepening interest in the matter, induced 
the board to discuss it at length in their report in 1832. After referring 
to the satisfactory condition of the common schools, and extolling the 
school system, with a single exception, the exception being that it in- 
cluded no agency for insuring a sufficient supply of competent teachers, 
the report proceeds to discuss the various plans suggested for remedy- 
ing the difficulty, as follows : 

With some it has been a favorite theory to provide further education at the public 
expense by the institution of a State seminary with branches in the several senatorial 
districts. This plan does not differ materially from that which has been adopted in 
some European countries. In Prussia there is in each province one or more semina- 



28 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

ries, supported, at the expense of the government, for the preparation of teachers. 
But there is this essential difference between the elementary schools in that kingdom 
and in this State : There they are under the absolute control and. direction of the 
government. No one is allowed, to act as an instructor without written permission 
from examiners appointed under the authority of the government, and although the 
expenses of the schools, between 20,000 and 30,000 in number, are paid by the inhab- 
itants of the several parishes, parents who neglect to send their children to school 
are liable to be fined for their omission to comply with the requirements of the law. 
In a word, the whole plan is compulsory ; presenting the anomaly of a government, 
founded upon arbitrary power, compelling its subjects to cherish a system which is 
at war in principle with the very elements of its own preservation. Although it 
might seem much more proper with a political organization like ours, the best secur- 
ity of which is a diffused intelligence, to compel parents to educate their children, 
yet our rule is, in all things not manifestly essential to the operation of government, 
to persuade rather than coerce. Our common schools, though assisted by the State, 
are maintained by voluntary contribution of the inhabitants of the respective dis- 
tricts, and those who are most interested have the selection of teachers. Public 
opinion in this country would hardly endure a system like that which exists in Prus- 
sia. If the State were to establish seminaries for the preparation of teachers, it 
would be no certainty that the school districts would give them employment, and 
they could not be forced upon the district against their, wishes. Many individuals 
would unquestionably be tempted, after receiving their education as teachers, to 
abandon that calling for the higher rewards of others, and thus the munificence of 
the public would be expended for individual benefits. It was, therefore, conceived 
(as the regents think, wisely) that the academies should become the nurseries of in- 
structors for common schools, leaving it to the interest of individuals to prepare themselves 
for the business of teaching, to the interest of the academies to provide the means of their 
preparation, and to the liberality of the school districts to offer sufficient wages to secure 
their services.* 

The act of 13th April, 1827, increasing the literature fund, virtually adopts the 
latter plan, by declaring that one of the objects of that increase was " to promote 
the education of teachers." 

The regents had the honor to say, in a former report to the legislature, that they 
should cheerfully cooperate in promoting the speedy accomplishment of that object. 
They have now the satisfaction to present a fact, which they consider of immense 
importance as an evidence, that the views adopted by the legislature, although dis- 
sented from at that time by many intelligent individuals, were founded in wisdom. 
By a reference to the abstract it will appear that St. Lawrence Academy, at Pots- 
dam, St. Lawrence County, in the fourth senatorial district, has sent out during the 
last year 80 teachers of common schools, and that a part of the course of study con- 
sists of lectures upon the principles of teaching. The superiority which the St. 
Lawrence Academy has acquired in this respect is to be ascribed altogether to the 
new branch of instruction introduced into it. There is at least an average of more 
than one academy to each senatorial district equally capable of accomplishing the 
same result by adopting the same measures. The Canandaigua Academy has intro- 
duced a similar course of instruction, but with what success does not appear by the 
report. There is no doubt that a thousand instructors might readily be prepared 
annually for the common schools, a number exceeding by nearly 200 the average 
number supplied by the seminaries of Prussia. It only remains for the school dis- 
tricts to furnish the inducements by offering wages which shall be equal to the 
average profits of other occupations. The advantages of a regular system of in- 
struction in the principles of teaching need no illustration. Experience is constantly 
suggesting improved methods for the communication of knowledge and for the dis- 
cipline of youthful minds, and works have recently been published embodying the 

* Italics by author of circular. 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 29 

results of observation and practice. With the aid of these, and with such a course 
of instruction as has been adopted at the St. Lawrence Academy, teachers attain, 
in a very short time, to qualifications which would otherwise be the fruit of long 
and painful experience, equally embarrassing to themselves and fatal to the progress 
of their pupils. The regents are decidedly of the opinion that the academies are the 
proper instruments for accomplishing the great object of supplying the common 
schools with teachers. These institutions have already the advantage of convenient 
edifices, in some cases, of large, permanent funds, valuable libraries, and philosoph- 
ical apparatus, amounting in all to an investment of about half a million of dollars. 
By ingrafting upon the course of studies a department of studies in the principles of 
teaching the respectability and capacities of institutions will be increased, and 
those who are qualifying themselves for the business of instruction may enjoy the 
benefit of all other branches which enter into the ordinary academic course. In 
every point of view it is conceived that this is the most advisable method of pre- 
paring instructors. Under this impression the regents take the liberty of remark- 
ing that in case the condition of the public finances shall in a future day admit of 
an additional appropriation to the object of promoting the education of teachers, 
the end may be much more advantageously attained by connecting it with the acad- 
emies than by creating a separate establishment for the purpose. When these insti- 
tutions shall send forth a regular supply of well-qualified instructors, an object 
which they hope to see accomplished by a union of the same munificent policy which 
has heretofore guided tlje councils of the State, with the liberal spirit which has 
animated the people, our system of elementary instruction will be complete, and in 
this department the Government will, by contributing to close up the sources of ig- 
norance and vice, have done all that properly falls to its province to give strength 
and duration to our civil liberties." * 

This extract is worthy of careful attention, because it contains a clear 
and fall statement of the reasons which induced the educators of the 
State of New York, in 1835, to prefer normal departments in academies 
to normal schools as agencies for training teachers. The fundamental 
reason evidently was their conception of ^the kind of training which 
teachers need. What a teacher needs, the regents evidently thought, is 
the same academic instruction given to students preparing for business 
and for colleges, and, in addition, instruction in the principles of teaching. 

The kind of preparation the academies were giving to teachers about 
this time is indicated by their report to the regents. The Cortland 
Academy for the year 1833-34 reports : 

* The trustees during the past season have made an effort to instruct teachers of com- 
mon schools on a plan different from what they have heretofore been accustomed to. 
A class was formed at the commencement of the last term and instructed with special 
reference to preparing them for teaching common schools. The principal objects pro- 
posed in the course of instruction adopted were to make them thoroughly acquainted 
with the branches usually taught in those schools, and with the best modes of in- 
struction and discipline. t 

The same year, in the report of the Oxford Academy, under the head 

of "Teachers' Department," it is stated that — 

A department for the instruction of teachers has been continued for 2^ months of 
the year, during which time an additional teacher was employed for the purpose of 
affording to those young men who were about to enter upon the business of teaching 
for the ensuing winter advantages for instruction which they could not have when classed 

* See Report of Regents of the University for 1832, pp. 10-12. 
tSee p. 64 of Annual Report of Regents for 1835. 



30 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

with the rest of the school.* Instruction was given in all the branches required to be 
taught in common schools, and also history, Constitutfon of the United States and of 
New York, algebra, geometry, and surveying to those who could find leisure to pursue 
them. A course of lectures on schoolkeeping and practical illustrations of the duties 
of teachers was given during the continuance of the department. It is not believed 
that 2£ months is a sufficient time to propare young men properly for the discharge 
of their duties as teachers, but it is as long and even a longer time than the depart- 
ment has been able to sustain itself. t 

Canandaigua Academy reported that — 

About four years since a teachers' department was organized on the following plan : 
First, that those young gentlemen who entered this school to prepare themselves for 
teachers should enter the classes pursuing those branches in which they wished, or it 
was deemed necessary, to perfect themselves. In these classes the instruction is to he 
very extended and minute.* Second, the teachers to be organized into a class and re- 
ceive a specific course of instruction on the following plan : To meet five evenings 
each week and spend 2 or 3 hours together. On three evenings of each week Hall's 
Lectures on School Keeping are recited till the book is finished and thoroughly re- 
viewed. The lessons are short, and the time is filled up by the instructor in further 
illustration of the subject and by prompting inquiry and examination in the class. 
The remaining evening of the week is devoted to the consideration of a series of sub- 
jects, one being discussed each evening. Each member of the class brings in a written 
subject. So many of these are read as the time will allow. The important hints 
thrown out by the members are particularly stated by the instructor, enlarged upon, 
and illustrated. Mutual conversation is called forth. This evening exercise is at- 
tended with great interest and profit both to the instructor and the class. The sub- 
jects discussed on these evenings are nearly the following, and in the order mentioned : 

(1) The defects in common schools. 

(2) The circumstances which restrain and discourage the efforts of the teacher. 

(3) The best modes of teaching the alphabet, reading, and spelling. 

(4) The best mode of teaching arithmetic, and the best books. 

(5) The best mode of teaching geography. 

(6) The best mode of teaching ^English grammar. 

(7) The best mode of teaching writing and making pens. 

(8) Pestalozzi and his mode of instruction. * 

(9) Government of schools. 

(10) Best mode of arresting the attention of pupils. Substitution of signs, etc., 
for the ordinary questions in school. 

(11) How to teach composition. 

(12) What plans can the teacher adopt to render his labors more extensively use- 
ful to his pupils ? This inquiry is intended to embrace the formation of school lyce-f 
urns, school libraries, the circulation of periodicals relating to education, etc. 

(13) Construction of schoolhouses. 

This course of instruction is designed to continue one-quarter of each year„ Here- 
after a teachers' class will be organized both in the summer and winter terms. It is 
not supposed that a course of instruction is all that is needed; by no means. The 
course, however, is such as to give to young men a more elevated, enlarged, and ac- 
curate view of what a teacher should accomplish; prompt thought on the subject of 
communicating instruction leads to the invention of new methods of teaching and 
commanding the attention of pupils, and becomes in some degree a substitute*for a 
long and painful experience.}: 

* Italics by author of circular. 

tSee p. 65 of Annual Report of Board of Regents for 1835. 

tSee pp. 65-66 of Annual Report of Board of Regents for 1835. 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 31 

These extracts seem to indicate that the authorities of the academies 
perceived that intending teachers need a different kind of academic in- 
struction from that which the rest of their students received. The 
Cortland Academy reported that one of the objects proposed in the 
course of instruction was " to make them thoroughly acquainted with 
the branches usually taught in those schools," and the report of the Ox- 
ford Academy intimated that those preparing to teach were not " classed 
with the rest of the school." Although intending teachers in the Can 
andaigua Academy entered those classes " in which they wished, or it 
was deemed necessary, to perfect themselves," we are told that instruc- 
tion in these classes was "to be very extended and minute." Although 
the theorists held that the intending teacher needs the same kind of 
instruction as the rest of the students, those practical educators felt 
that it was not so. 

This work was undertaken by these academies without aid from the 
Sate, simply in response to a demand created by public opinion tor 
better prepared teachers. The first law passed in New York, and in- 
deed in this country, making provision for the education of teachers for 
the common schools was passed May 2, 1834. The act is as follows : 

Section 1. The revenue of the literature fund now in the treasury, and the excess 
of the annual revenue of said fund hereafter to be paid into the treasury, or portions 
thereof, may be distributed by the regents of the university, if they shall deem it 
expedient, to the academies subject to their visitation, or a part of them, to be ex- 
pended as hereinafter mentioned. 

Sec. 2. The trustees of academies to which any distribution of money shall be 
made by virtue of this act shall cause the same to be expended in educating teach- 
ers of common schools in such manner and under such regulations as said regents 
shall prescribe. 

A special meeting of the board of regents was held May 22, 1834, and 
a committee of three was appointed " to prepare and report to the re- 
gents at some future meeting a plan for carrying into practical opera- 
tion the provisions" of the law. 

The committee consisted of Messrs. Dix, Buel, and Graham, and at 
the annual meeting of the board, held January 8, 1835, it reported 
through its chairman, Eegent John A. Dix, " a plan for the better edu- 
cation of teachers of common schools." 

This elaborate report — it covers 26 pages of an octavo volume — is 
well worthy of a careful perusal, not only because of its historical in- 
terest as outlining the first plan for the training of teachers ever pre- 
sented in this country, but because of the ability and thoroughness 
with which the subject is discussed. 

After an emphatic statement of the importance of the subject, the 
report proceeds to discuss the provisions for the training of teachers 
made by France and Prussia. That the necessity of providing for the 
training of teachers was not felt when the common-school system was 
established is explained by the fact that there were at that time a large 



32 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

number of experienced teachers who had been teaching private schools 
ready to be enlisted into the service of the public schools. 

Reference is made to the fact that the St. Lawrence, Oxford, and 
Canandaigua Academies have established a course of lectures and ex- 
ercises for the preparation of teachers, and since this has been done 
with very little aid from the State it is inferred that more generous 
assistance is all that is necessary to enable them to reach the desired 
end. The success of the St. Lawrence Academy is particularly dwelt 
on. The schools in its neighborhood are almost entirely supplied with 
teachers by its students, and they receive on the average $40 a year 
more than before a department was established for training them. 

The question of creating separate institutions for the training of 
teachers has repeatedly been before the legislature, but it was deemed 
more advantageous to establish teachers 7 departments in the acade- 
mies, and this may now be considered the special policy of the State. 

The revenue of the literature fund then in the treasury, which, ac- 
cording to the law of May 2, 1834, was to be devoted to making pro- 
vision for the training of teachers, is stated to be $10,040.76, and the 
annual excess of that revenue which could be applied to this purpose 
would amount to about $3,500. The former sum could at once be de- 
voted to making provision for the education of common-shool teach- 
ers in existing academies, but it was too small to be divided among 
all the academies of the State. The limited sum at their disposal 
made it necessary to select a small number of academies, but these, for 
the sake of public convenience, must be in different parts of the State, 
within reach of every county. The committee recommended that one 
academy be selected in each senatorial district, as there were eight of 
such districts, and as a smaller number than eight could not be selected 
with due regard to public convenience. 

The committee further recommended that each of the eight academies 
should be supplied with the same apparatus and with equal facilities 
for undertaking the proposed course of instruction. They thought that 
$500 for each academy would be sufficient for the purchase of apparatus, 
library, etc., and that in addition they should receive $400 annually for 
the support of a competent instructor. 

The committee thought it evident that the course of study should in- 
clude all those subjects which were regarded as indispensable to a first- 
rate teacher of the common sch ools. They recommended that no student 
should be admitted to the teachers' department who had not passed such 
an examination as the regents required to entitle him to be regarded as 
a scholar in the higher branches of an English education. The subjects 
which he should pursue should be — 

(1) The English language. 

(2) Writing and drawing. 

(3) Arithmetic, mental and written, and bookkeeping. 

(4) Geography and general history, continued. 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 33 

(5) The history of the United States. 

(6) Geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, and surveying. 

(7) Natural philosophy and the elements of astronomy. 

(8) Chemistry and mineralogy. 

(9) The Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the 
State of New York. 

(10) Select parts of the Revised Statutes and the duties of public 
officers. 

(11) Moral and intellectual philosophy. 

(12) The principles of teaching*. 

No other subject should be required to enable the pupil to obtain 
a diploma, but other subjects should not be excluded if any academy 
desired to introduce them. 

The committee then proceeded to make detailed suggestions in regard 
to the above-mentioned subjects of study. The teacher should be famil- 
iarized with the best methods of teaching the alphabet. Blackboards 
and slates should be used in teaching spelling, so that the eye might 
assist the ear in detecting mistakes. In teaching arithmetic much use 
should be made of visible illustrations, and the subject should be made 
as practical as possible by selecting as examples such operations as the 
pupil must be familiar with in after life, though it should be so taught, 
at the same time, that the pupil might receive the maximum amount of 
mental discipline. Instruction in principles of teaching should be thor- 
ough and extended, not confined" to the art of teaching or the best modes 
of communicating knowledge, but including also such moral instruction 
as might aid the teacher in governing his own conduct, and molding the 
character of his pupils. The text-book recommended was Hall's ''Lec- 
tures on School Keeping;" and as reading books "Abbott's Teacher," 
" Taylor's District School," and the "Annals of Education" were recom- 
mended. But the strictly pedagogical training was not to be confined 
to theory. The committee thought it to be of first importance that the 
students should conduct some part of the recitations, should prepare 
questions on the particular subject studied, and should give illustrations 
of it. Instruction should be given in the best methods of imparting 
knowledge; students should know how to get and to keep the attention 
of their pupils, how to impart knowledge in the best way to make 
a lasting impression on the mind, and how to develop in their pupils 
habits of investigation and independent thought. 

Those charged with the important task of carrying into execution the 
proposed plan should not for a moment forget that the object of edu- 
cation is not merely to amass the greatest possible amount of informa- 
tion, but at the same time to develop and discipline the faculties. At 
every step the mind should be taught to rely on the exercise of its own 
powers. The pupils should be required to assign reasons for every po- 
sition assumed in their various studies, not merely with a view to give 
them a thorough comprehension of the subject, but for the purpose also 
4890— No. 8 3 



34 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

of cultivating that habit of critical investigation which is not satisfied 
until every part of the subject of inquiry is understood. The result of 
common school education in most cases is to burden the memory with 
facts and rules of which the proper practical application is but im- 
perfectly comprehended. This defect was at war with the spirit of the 
age, which is to probe to its inmost depths every subject of knowledge 
and to convert the results of our inquiries to useful purposes. Hence 
pupils should be made to think for themselves instead of treasuring up 
merely the results of other men's thoughts. The great instrument of 
reform will be to make demonstration keep pace with knowledge. Noth- 
ing should be left unexplained j nor should anything be allowed to rest 
on mere authority, excepting where from the nature of the subject it 
admits of no other foundation. 

To almost every species of instruction the inductive method may be 
applied with great advantage. Nature herself seems to teach that the 
observation of facts should precede inductions, and that general prin- 
ciples can only be deduced from particular facts. An intelligent in 
structor will know how to apply the rule, and convert it to the most 
useful purposes. 

The committee fully considered the question whether the studies and 
recitations in the teachers' department should be distinct from the or- 
dinary academic exercises, and they were decidedly of the opinion that 
convenience coincides with good policy in requiring that pupils who 
are in a course of training for teachers should be taught in connection 
with the other students, except when the peculiar duties of teachers are 
the subject of study and examination. 

The committee thought that less than three years — the time required 
by the Prussian seminaries, in which the course of study for teachers of 
the first grade is about equal in length and importance to that recom- 
mended by the committee — would be too short a time for the comple- 
tion of the course. They suggested that the year be divided into two 
terms of four months each, that the members of the department might 
have the opportunity of teaching a winter term, and thus help them- 
selves financially, and at the same time intellectually, by putting into 
practice what they would have learned. 

The committee thought that each academy should be furnished with 
a library well supplied with the best authors on the subjects in the pre- 
scribed course, but were of the opinion that the selection of the books 
ought, for a time at least, to be left to the academies. The committee, 
however, made out a list of apparatus, with prices, which they thought 
necessary for each of the eight academies. It is as follows, with the 
prices annexed so far as they can be ascertained : 

Orrery ! $20. 00 

Nuniera 1 frame and geometrical solids 2. 50 

Globes 12. 00 

Movable planisphere 1 . 50 

Tidedial 3.50 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 85 

Optical apparatus $10. 00 

Mechanical powers 12. 00 

Hydrostatic apparatus 10. 00 

Pneumatic apparatus 35. 00 

Chemical apparatus 25. 00 

One hundred specimens of mineralogy 10. 00 

Electrical machine 12. 00 

Instruments to teach surveying 80. 00 

Map of the United States 8. 00 

Map of the State of New York 8. 00 

Atlas 5. 00 

Telescope 40. 00 

Quadrant 15. 00 

• 

The committee suggested that a diploma, signed by the principal and 
bearing the official seal of the institution, should be given to those who 
satisfactorily completed the prescribed course of study, and that those 
who only completed a part of the course should receive a certificate 
signed by the principal, and stating the particular subjects they have 
studied, and containing such an estimate of their moral character and 
qualifications to teach the subjects they had studied as they might be 
considered entitled to. But neither diploma nor certificate was to en- 
title its holder to teach without a certificate from the inspectors of com- 
mon schools of the town.* 

After having been considered in part at the meeting of the board, 
January 8, 1835, and at the adjourned meeting, January 20, the report 
was accepted without any substantial changes. At the latter meeting 
the board passed an ordinance establishing the departments in the 
academies designated; provided that the trustees of the designated 
academies should signify their acceptance of the appointment under 
the specified conditions upon receiving official notice of it, and should 
present a full and detailed statement -of the progress and condition of 
the teachers' department with their annual report. 

After the academies had signified their acceptance of the appoint- 
ment, their principals were invited to meet a committee of the board of 
regents at Albany, September 1, 1835, for the purpose of securing entire 
uniformity as to the extent of the course of instruction in each of the 
subjects in the prescribed course. At that meeting the course of study 
in the teachers' department was discussed, and each principal named 
the text-book used in that department in his institution. A list of 
books of reference for the teachers' department to be purchased by the 
regents was selected by the meeting, and they recommended that geom- 
etry should be required "only through the first six books of Playfair, 

*The committee designated the academies in which they thought the teachers' 
departments should be established, stating that they were guided in making their 
selection by one of two considerations: (1) The greater value of the philosophical 
and chemical apparatus of the academy named; and (2) the fact that the endow- 
ments or situation of the academies designated would probably make the course of 
study in them less expensive than in any other in the district. 



36 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

or what shall be deemed equivalent in other authors/' and that algebra 
through simple and quadratic equations, and ratio and proportion 
should form a part of the course of study. 

It is not surprising to learn that four out of the eight academies at the 
end of the first year reported that no students had been enrolled in the 
teachers' department. The wonder is that 138 had entered that depart- 
ment in the other four at some period during the year. Of the reasons 
assigned, the length of the course of study, the declaration required of 
students of that department that they intended to devote themselves to 
teaching, the low rate of wages of common-school teachers, facilities for 
more lucrative employment which require no special preparation, the lack 
of information on the part of the public as to the object of the regents in 
establishing teachers' departments, the spirit of speculation then preva- 
lent in western New York — of these reasons subsequent experience 
would lead us to suppose that the first four would have been quite sufii- 
cient to prevent a large number from availing themselves of these 
departments. 

But in spite of the small attendance, all the academies reported favor- 
ably on the plan. It was thought that these departments c i have directed 
public opinion to the state of common schools, and the means of improv- 
ing them," and that " an important end in the cause of education will be 
attained by educating young men in the manner prescribed, though no 
one of them should ever teach," for "it will spread through society men 
who can judge and advise well on the subject of common schools." 

Besides the eight academies in which teachers' departments had been 
established eight more reported that they had paid special attention to 
the preparation of teachers for the common schools, one of them having 
organized a teachers' department with a course of study of 2 years, but 
in other respects similar to those established by the regents. 

In his message to the legislature of 1838, Governor Marcy, after com- 
mending the work done by the teachers' departments, said : 

But no success that can attend these already established will make them compe- 
tent to supply in any considerable degree the demand for teachers ; it has therefore 
been proposed to increase the number of such departments in each senate district of 
the State by devoting to that purpose a portion of the income derived from the 
deposit of the public moneys. It is well worthy your consideration whether still 
better results might not be obtained by county normal schools established and main- 
tained on principles analogous to those on which our system of common scools is 
founded. 

April 17, 1838, an act was passed providing for the expenditure of the 
income of the United States deposit fund. The eighth section of this 
act provided for the annual payment of $28,000 to the literature fund, 
to be distributed among the academies in the several senatorial districts 
as the law directed. The ninth section of the same act provides that: 

It shall be the duty of the regents of the university to require of every academy 
receiving a distributive share of public money under the preceding section equal to 
$700 per annum, to establish and maintain in such academy a department for the in- 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 37 

struction of common-school teachers, under the direction of the said regents, as a 
condition of receiving the distributive share of every such academy. 

In accordance with this law the board of regents established teachers 7 
departments in eight other academies. 

In his report to the legislature for the school year 1838-39, the State 
superintendent, in speaking of the influence exerted by these depart- 
ments, said: 

The standard has been raised, the demand for competent teachers has increased, 
and the supply has been materially augmented. It should be made the interest of 
those who intend to be teachers to avail themselves of those departments. This 
could be effected by a legislative provision, declaring that a certificate of qualifica- 
tion given by the trustees of the academy under their seal should constitute the per- 
son receiving it a qualified teacher in the common schools of the State without any 
further certificate from the inspectors of the town. 

During the school year 1839-40 the superintendent appointed Rev. 
Dr. Alonzo Potter, of Union College, and D. H. Little, to visit such 
academies as they could conveniently for the purpose of ascertaining 
"how many of the pupils who have been instructed in these departments 
have subsequently devoted themselves to the business of teaching,' 7 
and whether they " are required or allowed to take part in giving in- 
struction as a practical exercise." They were requested also " person- 
ally to examine them as to their proficiency and acquirements ; particu- 
larly, their knowledge in those branches which are usually taught in 
the common schools." They were requested to make a report embody- 
ing the results of their investigations and observations, with such sug- 
gestions as might occur to them. 

Dr. Potter visited four academies. He summarized the results of his 
observations as follows : 

I. The students in these departments make good proficiency in their studies, but 
pursue the higher branches to the neglect of those which are elementary. 

II. They remain at the institutions about one-third of the time originally contem- 
plated. 

III. They are not generally exercised in teaching in the presence of their instruct- 
ors ; most of them, however, have taught common schools. 

IV. They usually expect to teach after leaving the department, but not for a long 
time. 

V. The departments have contributed indirectly but materially to the improve- 
ment of the common schools, viz : 

(1) They have led employers to consider the importance of having better qualified 
teachers. 

(2) They notify trustees where they may apply for teachers. 

(3) They create an intimate and salutary connection between academies and com- 
mon schools. 

(4) »They multiply the number of persons who make teaching a temporary pursuit 
and render such persons better qualified for their duties. 

(5) They increase the number of better informed citizens, especially of such as will 
take an interest in common schools and make good inspectors. 

He suggested that the time required for the course of study be re- 
duced to a year and a half or two years, and that " an absolute promise 
should be exacted from those who have been in the department more 



38 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

than two terms that on leaving it they will teach a common school for 
the period of at least eight months." He made one other suggestion 
which is worthy of special attention. It is as follows : 

I would suggest whether some ineans might not be adopted for training a class of 
teachers with more especial reference to country common schools, and to primary 
schools in villages and cities — teachers whose attainments should not extend much 
beyond the common English branches, but whose minds should be awakened by 
proper influence — who should be made familiar by practice with the best modes of 
teaching, and who should come under strong obligations to teach for at least 2 or 3 
years. In Prussia and France, normal schools are supported at public expense; 
most of the pupils receive both board and tuition gratuitously ; but at the close of 
the course they give bonds to refund the whole amount received, unless they teach 
under the direction of the government for a certain number of years. That such 
schools, devoted exclusively to the preparation of teaching, have some advantages 
over any other methods, is sufficiently apparent from the experience of other nations ; 
and it has occurred to me that, as supplementary to our present system, the establish- 
ment of one in this State might be eminently useful. If placed under proper auspices 
and located near the capitol where it could enjoy the supervision of the superintend- 
ent of common schools and be visited by members of the legislature, it might con- 
tribute in many ways to raise the tone of instruction throughout the State. A course 
of one year, divided between,study and exercises in model schools, would be sufficient 
to qualify tke pupils for the particular kind of teaching in view ; and they would then 
carry the awakening influence of their instructions and example to the very districts 
in which it is most needed. 

These observations and suggestio ns tell an important story as to the na- 
ture and value of the work in those teachers 7 departments. The students 
enrolled in them remain on the average one year instead of three r and 
spend the time studying the higher branches to the neglect of the lower. 
They have, indeed, benefited the common schools, but chiefly in indi- 
rect ways. It is evident from his recommendation of a normal school 
that Dr. Potter thinks there is a more fundamental defect in the teachers' 
departments than the length of the course of study. The experience 
of other nations has made it sufficiently apparent, he thinks, that schools 
"devoted exclusively to the preparation of teachers have some advan- 
tages over any other method." 

But Mr. Spencer, then superintendent of common schools, adhered to 
the plan which, as chairman of the literature committee of the senate, 
he had reported 15 years before. The difficulty, in his opinion, was that 
there were not enough of the teachers' departments. In his report pub- 
lished the same year he endeavored to prove that teachers' departments 
in academies were as good as normal schools for the preparation of 
teachers, and recommended that a larger number of academies be engaged 
in the work. Accordingly, in 1841, eight more academies established 
teachers' departments, these under the direction of the superintendent 
of common schools, and to receive $300 on condition of maintaining 
these departments six months in the year. 

But his successor as State superintendent, Colonel Young, advocated 
a radically different policy. In his annual report made January 12, 1843, 
he expressed the opinion that the teachers' departments were not accom- 
plishing their purpose "because the bounty of the State was diffused 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 39 

over too wide a surface." He recommended that the $4,800 should be 
divided among four of the most efficient academies in the State, and he 
further recommended the appropriation from the literature fund of a 
sufficient amount " to establish and maintain a similar school in Albany." 
He repeated the former recommendation in a communication made to 
the regents a few days later. The board thought favorably of it; they 
passed an ordinance reducing the number of teachers' departments^ to 
four, but this ordinance was not to be interpreted as extending to or in 
any manner affecting " any department for the education of teachers of 
common schools which the regents of the university are required by law 
to have established in every academy which receives a share of $700 in 
the general distribution of $40,000 annually made." 

At the next annual meeting of the board of regents, held January 
11, 1844, on motion of Superintendent Young, the appointment of stand- 
ing committees for the establishment of teachers' departments in acade- 
mies was for a time suspended. This, of course, was a virtual discon- 
tinuance of these departments. Nevertheless, in his report dated January 
13, 1844, he said that he was convinced "that four normal schools, 
although connected with academies and subjected to no expense for rent 
or for ordinary academic apparatus," could " not be established and main- 
tained with an annual appropriation of $1,200 to each." Accordingly, 
in accordance with his recommendation of the preceding year, a bill 
establishing the State Normal School at Albany was passed May 7, 1844, 
and the first chapter in the history of the training of teachers in New 
York and this country was closed, since by the diversion of the funds 
which had been appropriated for teachers' departments to the support 
of the new institution those departments were practically abolished.* 

I suppose no one now will question the truthfulness of the assertion 
which Superintendent Young made in his report in 1843, that "the 
special qualifications of teachers " by means of the teachers' departments 
" had practically failed." And it is evident that their failure consisted 
not merely or chiefly in the small number of teachers who availed them- 
selves of them.t The idea which lay at the foundation of those depart- 

* It is interesting to note that in 1842, the year before Superintendent Young recom- 
mended the establishment of a normal school, a convention of county superintendents 
was held in Utica at which Dr. Potter, Horace Mann, and George B. Emerson advo- 
cated a normal school, and that the superintendents gave the idea their support. Also in 
1843, Calvin T. Hulburd, who was chairman of the committee to which Superintendent 
Young's recommendation of a normal school was referred, visited the normal schools 
of Massachusetts for the purpose of ascertaining for himself the value of such institu- 
tions. The bill providing for the normal school at Albany was introduced by him, 
accompanied by an elaborate report upon the normal schools of Massachusetts. 

t During the 8 years of their existence 3,389 pupils were instructed in them. The 
following tabular statement gives the number instructed each year : 



1834-35 138 

1835-36 218 

1836-37 284 

1837-38 374 



1838-39 498 

1839-40 668 

1840-41 528 

1841-42 681 



40 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

merits, it seems to me, was fundamentally false, the idea that students 
preparing for teaching need the same kind of instruction in what is 
called academic subjects as students preparing for college or for busi- 
ness. Horace Mann, in drawing a comparison between them and the 
normal schools which were on the point of being opened in Massachu- 
setts — he wrote in the early part of 1839 — went to the root of the matter : 

The course of studies furnished for the two [he said] is not materially different. 
The time to be occupied in completing a course of study may he a little longer or a 
little shorter in Massachussets than in New York, at the option of the pupil. So far 
as the plan is concerned, the striking point of dissimilarity is, that in New York the 
teachers' department is engrafted upon an academy ; it is not the principal, but an 
incidental object of the institution; it is not primary, but secondary; it does not 
command the entire and undivided attention of the instructors, but shares that at- 
tention with the general objects for which the academy was founded ; it may fail and 
the academy still survive. In Massachusetts the business of the normal school is 
to possess the entire and exclusive occupancy of the whole ground ; to engross the 
whole attention of all the instructors and all the pupils ; to have no rival of any kind, 
no incidental or collateral purposes, and the very existence of the school will be 
staked upon its success. In comparing the relative merits of the two plans, although 
it may not become us to express an opinion that the one adopted in the State of New 
York is not the best for that State, or, at any rate, that it was not the best at the 
time it was adopted (for it is to be remembered that almost all the information 
possessed by the community at large, on this subject, has been acquired within the 
last 3 years), yet we feel confident that the plan adopted by the Massacliussetts board 
of education, so far, at least, as this State is concerned, has a decided superiority. 
The course of studies commonly pursued at the institutions which are worthy to be 
called academies, that is, at seminaries, which occupy a middle ground between 
common schools and colleges, consists rather in an extension iuto the higher depart- 
ments of science than in reviewing and thoroughly and critically mastering the 
rudiments or elementary branches of knowledge. Yet the latter is the first business 
of the normal school. * * * Few intellectual operations are more dissimilar than 
those of acquiring and imparting. The art of imparting is one main portion of the 
normal pupils' qualification; while acquisition, as our academies are generally con- 
ducted, is the main object of the academical student. At any rate, the latter is en- 
deavoring to acquire the power of acting upon men, or upon matter; of becoming 
acquainted with civil institutions, or with physical laws and agencies, while the 
main purpose of the former is that of influencing and training the plastic minds of 
children — employments which require the activity of different sets of faculties. 

And the observations of Dr. Potter confirmed these speculations of 
Mr. Mann. The students in these departments pursue the higher 
branches to the neglect of those that are elementary. In such an in- 
stitution they would not only be permitted, but almost inevitably en- 
couraged to do so. The instructors in such institutions know most 
about the higher branches, have most interest in them, do their best to 
work in them. They have, as a rule, only that knowledge of the ele- 
mentary branches which they need as citizens and as men — not that sys- 
tematic knowledge of them which the teacher requires to make them a 
real means of culture to his pupils, a means of broadening their mental 
horizon, and of developing in their minds a sense of the universality of 
law, much less not that knowledge which enables them to impart from 
their own bounteous stores such a wealth of information to intending 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 41 

teachers as will enable thein in their turn to impart to their students 
that modicum, at least, of knowledge which their needs as men and 
citizens require. And this doubtless was one of the reasons why the 
students in those departments did not, as a rule, intend to engage in 
the work of the common schools for any length of time. Their whole 
education was away from the common schools rather than towards them. 
What men can do well, they like to do; and what they can not do well, 
they dislike to do. Without any fitness for the work of the common 
schools, their inclinations, therefore, naturally led them away from them. 
In a word, these teachers' departments doubtless educated then mem- 
bers but did not properly prepare them for teaching. The true function 
of the normal school is to give to its students that thorough prepara- 
tion for their work which its transcendent importance demands, includ- 
ing as one of the essential elements of that preparation that knowledge 
of the subjects they are preparing to teach which they need simply 
because they are teachers. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 

We have seen how persistently James G. Carter labored in behalf of 
the professional education of teachers, and that he drafted the bill pro- 
viding for the Massachusetts board of education. This bill became a 
law in April, 1837. At their first meeting, June 29, of that year, Horace 
Maun, then president of the Massachusetts senate, was unanimously 
elected secretary. Under the date of March 10, 1838, Mr. Mann wrote 
in his private journal: 

Went to Mr. D wight's [Edmund], where a number of gentlemen were assembled 
to discuss the expediency of applying to the legislature for a grant to aid in the 
establishment of teachers' seminaries. * * * After they had dispersed, Mr. 
Dwight gave me authority to propose to the legislature, in my own way, that $10,000 
should be forthcoming from himself and others ; and that at any rate he would be 
responsible for that amount to accomplish the object, provided the legislature would 
give the same amount for the same cause. 

Two days later, Mr. Mann communicated Mr. Dwight's offer to the 
two houses in a letter urging its acceptance. The joint committee, to 
whom this communication was referred, made a report March 22, accom- 
panied by the following resolve : 

Resolved, That his excellency the governor be, and he is hereby, authorized and 
requested, by and with the advice and consent of this council, to draw his warrant 
upon the treasurer of the Commonwealth, in favor of the board of education, for the 
sum of $10,000, in such installments and at such times as said board may request ; pro- 
vided, said board in their request shall certify that the secretary of said board has 
placed at their disposal an amount equal to that for which such application may by 
them be made, both sums to be expended under the direction of said board in qual- 
ifying teachers for the common schools in Massachusetts." * 

This resolve passed both houses almost unanimously, and was ap- 
proved by the governor, Edward Everett, April 19. 

Immediately the board began to discuss plans for reaching the desired 
end. Should they concentrate tlieir efforts upon a single institution ? 
Should they imitate the example of New York and ingraft departments 
upon academies in different parts of the State"? Should they attempt 
to obtain the cooperation of public- spirited individuals and establish 
private institutions in different parts of the State ? 

The New York plan was rejected because in that case " the depart- 
ment would be but a secondary interest in the school," and teachers 

* See the Massachusetts Common School Journal, vol. I, p. 35. 
42 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 43 

would be selected rather in view of their qualifications to do the general 
work of the school than because of any special fitness to train teachers. 
Besides, inasmuch " as the course of study proper to qualify teachers 
must be essentially different from a common academical course, it would 
be impossible for any preceptor duly to superintend both.' 7 The objec- 
tion to concentrating their resources in a single institution was that if 
it were successful its success could be known to but a small part of the 
people of the State. 

It seemed best, therefore, after mature deliberation, to establish three 
normal schools, one to be located in the northeastern, one in the southeast- 
ern, and one in the western part of the State, to be continued for 3 years 
as an experiment. And inasmuch as the sum at their disposal was alto- 
gether inadequate to the provision of buildings, furniture, and the like, 
the board gave due notice that they would establish the schools at suit- 
able places as soon as they received the necessary assistance, in the hope 
that private individuals might give them aid in carrying out their plan. 

Seven different towns offered to provide buildings, fixtures, and furni- 
ture, and all the means necessary for carrying on the school exclusive 
of the compensation of teachers, and other towns made generous offers. 
At a meeting of the board, December 28, 1838, it was voted to locate a 
normal school for the qualification of female teachers in the town of Lex- 
ington, and one at Barre for teachers of both sexes. 

The next matter to be decided was the course of study. It would be 
extremely interesting to know exactly what influences led to the ulti- 
mate decision of this question. As Dr. W. T. Harris says, " All normal 
school work in this country follows substantially one tradition, and this 
* * * traces back directly to the course laid down by" Cyrus Peirce, 
or as I would say, by the school board of Massachusetts.* Eben S. 
Stearns says that the labors of Charles Brooks determined the particu- 
lar form which normal schools took in this country and it seems alto- 
gether probable that he is right.f In a passage already quoted, Horace 
Mann, comparing the teachers' departments of the New York academies 
with the normal schools about to be opened in Massachusetts (he was 
writing in March, 1839), said that he would not presume to say that the 
plan adopted in New York was not the best at the time it was adopted, 
since almost all the information possessed by the community at large on 
the subject had been acquired in the preceding 3 years — that is, in pre- 
cisely the period during which Charles Brooks had been lecturing all 
over New England on the Prussian normal schools. Now, as everybody 
knows, the course of study in the normal schools of Prussia was ar- 
ranged on the theory that a teacher needs a special professional knowl- 
edge of the subjects he undertakes to teach, as well as a knowledge of 

* See p. 12 of Proceedings of the Semicentennial Celebration of the State Normal 
School at Framingham. 

t See p. 42 of Memorial of the Quarter-centennial of the Establishment of Normal 
Schools in this country. 



44 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

what may be termed pedagogics. Whether it was a mere coincidence, 
or whether, as seems altogether likely, it was due to the influence of 
the Prussian seminaries, and especially to the enthusiastic and untir- 
ing labors of Charles Brooks in making the nature and work of those 
seminaries known, there was quite a unanimity of opinion among the 
the educators of Massachusetts as to the theory upon which the course 
of study in the normal schools should be based. As their special ob- 
ject was the preparation of teachers for the work of the common schools, 
they agreed that these schools could best accomplish that object by 
giving their pupils a special professional knowledge of the subjects 
they were preparing to teach, as well as of pedagogics. The idea that 
finds such favor with many of our educators to-day, that the true func- 
tion of normal schools consists in pedagogical instruction alone, would 
evidently have found no favor with the educators of that time if it had 
been suggested to them. Horace Mann said that the first business of 
a normal school consists "in reviewing and thoroughly and critically 
mastering the rudiments or elementary branches of knowledge." Mr. 
George S. Hilliard said (in 1841) that the reason why the branches 
taught in the common schools were taught in the normal schools was 
not that these were not known to the pupils in a certain way, but be- 
cause their knowledge was so loosely arranged that it was necessary to 
go all over the steps by which they attained it, in order to rearrange it 
for communication. Every person, however educated, he continued in 
substance, at college or elsewhere, who undertakes to teach, finds it 
necessary to go over the ground again, and to reconsider the elements 
of his knowledge and reconstruct it.* But the clearest exposition I 
have been able to find of the theory upon which the course of study laid 
down for the first normal schools of Massachusetts was based, is con- 
tained in an oration delivered by Governor Edward Everett at the 
opening of the two normal schools in 1839. He said : 

Such a course of instruction will obviously consist of the following parts : 
(1) A careful review of the branches of knowledge required to be taught in our 
common schools; it being, of course, the first requisite of a teacher that he should 
himself know well that which he is to aid others in learning. Such an acquaintance 
with these branches of knowledge is much less common than may be generally sup- 
posed. The remark may sound paradoxical, but I believe it will bear examination, 
when I say that a teacher thoroughly versed in those branches only which are taught 
in our common schools is as difficult to find as a first-rate lawyer, divine, or physician, 
statesman, man of business, or farmer. A good schoolmaster should be able to read 
and speak the English language with propriety, ease, and grace; and this can not 
be done without a thorough knowledge of its grammar. He should possess, at the 
same time, a clear, shapely, and rapid handwriting, and be well versed in the ele- 
mental principles and operations of numbers. Without going beyond these three 
branches — best designated by the good old-fashioned names of reading, writing, and 
arithmetic — I venture to say that a man who possesses them thoroughly is as rare as 
one of corresponding eminence in any of the learned professions. And yet the law 
requires such masters for our district schools. What says the statute? "In every 

*See p. 332 of the Massachusetts Common School Journal, vol. in. 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 45 

town containing 50 families or householders, there shall be kept, in each year, at the 
charge of the town, by a teacher or teachers of competent abilities and good morals, 
a school for the instruction of children in orthography, reading, writing, English 
grammar, geography, arithmetic, and good behavior." 

How few, even of those considered men of education, are thoroughly versed even 
in the branches required by law in our common schools ! How much fewer who 
know them as a teacher should know them ; for a teaeher ought to know of every- 
thing much more than the learner can be expected to acquire. The teacher must 
know things in a masterly way, curiously, nicely, and in their reasons. 

The great mistake in monitorial instruction is, that it supposes that the moment 
the bare knowledge of a fact in its naked form is attained, it qualifies a person to 
teach it to others. The teacher must see the truth under all its aspects, with its 
antecedents and consequents, or he can not present it in just that shape in which 
the young mind can apprehend it. He must, as he holds the diamond up to the sun, 
turn its facets round and round till the pupil catches its luster. It is not an uncom- 
mon thing to hear it said of a grown person that he is too learned to teach children; 
that he knows too much; is too far in advance of their minds to perceive their dif- 
ficulties. I imagine the trouble generally to be of the opposite character. The man 
of learning either never understood the matter thoroughly, or he has forgotten what 
he once knew. He has retained enough of his school learning for the particular 
calling of life he has chosen, but he has not retained a clear recollection of the 
elemental truths which it is necessary the learner should comprehend. If in this 
state of things he can not comprehend the schoolboy's difficulty, it is not his superior 
wisdom, but his ignorance, which is at fault. These remarks apply particularly to 
the science of numbers, over which most of our children pass languishing days and 
weeks, vainly striving to master a hard "sum" or a hard rule, which they finally 
give up in despair, or of which they content themselves with some false explanation, 
from pure want of capacity on the part of the teacher. A child of 8 or 9 years of 
age, at one of our district schools, had run through the chief rules of arithmetic, as 
it used to be taught, doing all the sums, and setting them down in his ciphering 
book, without the slighest comprehension of the reason of any one of the operations. 
At last, after going for a second or third time through the rule of decimals, he, for 
the first time, caught a glimpse of the real nature of a decimal fraction, of which he 
had been wholly ignorant before, and which, in his simplicity, he thought a dis- 
covery of his own. It was not till some time afterward that he found out that man- 
kind had for a great while been aware that a decimal is the numerator of a fraction 
whose denominator is a unit with as many ciphers as the numerator has places. The 
first object of instruction in a normal school is, as far as possible, in the space of time 
assigned to its instructions, to go over the circle of branches required to be taught, 
and see that the future teacher is thoroughly and minutely versed in them. 

(2) The second part of instruction in a normal school is the art of teaching. To 
know the matter to be taught and to know it thoroughly, are of themselves, though 
essential, not all that is required. There is a peculiar art of teaching. The details 
of this branch are inexhaustible, but it is hoped that the most important principles 
may be brought within such a compass as to afford material benefit to those who 
pass even the shortest time at these institutions. The subject should be taken up 
at its foundation, in those principles of our nature on which education depends, the 
laws which control the faculties of the youthful mind in the pursuit and attainment 
of truth, and the moral sentiments on the part of teacher and pupil which must be 
brought into harmonious action. The future teacher must be instructed in the most 
effectual way of reaching untaught mind — a process subtile, difficult, various. The 
first thing requisite often will be to ascertain what has to be unlearned, both as to 
positive errors and bad habits of mind. * * * 

(3) The third branch of instruction to be imparted in an institution, concerns 
the important subject of the government of the school, and might perhaps more 
justly have been named the first. The best method of governing a school — that 



46 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

is, of exercising such a moral influence in it as 4s most favorable to the improve- 
ment o*f the pupils — will form a very important part of the course of instruction 
designed to qualify teachers for their calling. It is this part of their duty which is 
probably least considered by themselves or their employers ; for the reason, perhaps, 
that qualification in this respect is least capable of being estimated by an external 
standard. But how much is not implied in the words "to govern a school." For 
several hours in the day the teacher is to exercise the authority of a parent over 50 
or 60, perhaps over 90 or 100, children. Parents can form an opinion whether this is 
a task to be executed without a system, without principles, and as a matter of 
course ; or whether it is not that in which the youthful teacher will most stand in 
need of all the preparation which it is possible to acquire. Without the aid of that 
instinct of natural affection which fortifies parental authority, he is expectedj with 
a parent's power, to control alike the docile and the obstinate, the sullen and the 
gay. * * * 

(4) In the last place, it is to be observed, that in aid of all the instruction and 
exercises within the limits of the normal school, properly so called, there is to be 
established a common or district school, as a school of practice, in which, under the 
direction of the principal in the normal school, the young teacher may have the 
benefit of actual exercise in the business of instruction.* 

Upon the theory so clearly formulated by the president ex officio of 
the board of education the course of study was worked out. The fol- 
lowing conditions of admission were prescribed : 

As a prerequisite to admission candidates must declare it to be their intention to 
qualify themselves to become school-teachers. If males they must have attained the 
age of 17 years complete, and of 16, if females, and must be free from any disease or 
infirmity which would unfit them for the office of teachers. They must undergo 
an examination * * * in orthography, geography, and arithmetic. They must 
furnish satisfactory evidence of good intellectual capacity and of high moral char- 
acter and principles. Examinations for admission will take place at the commence- 
ment of each academic year, and oftener at the discretion and convenience of the 
visitors and the principal, t 

The minimum of the term of study was fixed at one year, but a student 
wishing to remain longer in order to prepare himself for teaching the 
common schools, might do so, having first obtained the consent of the 
principal. 

The following was the course of study : 

(1) Orthography, reading, grammar, composition and rhetoric, logic. 

(2) Writing, drawing. 

(3) Arithmetic (mental and written), algebra, geometry, bookkeep- 
ing, navigation, surveying. 

(4) Geography (ancient and modern), with chronology, statistics, and 
general history. 

(5) Physiology. 

(6) Mental philosophy. 

(7) Music. 

(8) Constitution and history of Massachusetts and of the United States. 

(9) Natural philosophy and astronomy. 

(10) Natural history. 



*See "Orations and Speeches" of Edward Everett, vol. n, pp. 350-357. 
tSee p. 37 of the Massachusetts Common School Journal, vol. i. 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 47 

(11) The principles of piety and morality common to all sects of 
Christians. 

(12) The science and art of teaching with reference to all the above- 
named studies.* 

From this course a selection was to be made for those who were to 
remain but one year, according to the kind of school they were prepar- 
ing to teach. 

It was further determined that normal schools should be under the 
inspection of visitors, to be chosen in all cases from the board, except 
that the secretary of the board might be competent to serve in that 
capacity. 

It was decided also that each normal school should have an experi- 
mental or model school.t 

The next June, Rev. Cyrus Peirce, of Nantucket, was engaged as 
principal of the normal school at' Lexington, which opened the 3d of 
July with 3 pupils. 

Horace Mann said, writing of the teachers' departments in the acad- 
emies of New York two years after they had been abandoned, that it 
" was the most unfortunate step ever taken in New York on the sub- 
ject of education," because it cost " hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
and lost 20 years of time after the necessity of more efficient means had 
become a conviction in the minds of all intelligent nien."£ 

I have never been able to think so. If the first normal school estab- 
lished in this country had failed the cause of normal school instruction 
would have received a wound from which it would have taken a long time 
to recover. If there was one State in the Union in 1839 in which normal 
schools, if established, had to succeed, that State was Massachusetts. 
With such guardians as Horace Mann and Cyrus Peirce and the hosts 
of loyal and devoted friends who stood around the cradle of the young 
institution, it would have been strange indeed if it had not reached a 
healthy and vigorous maturity, feeble and sickly as it seemed at birth. 
It is fitting that the statue of Horace Mann should stand side by side 
with that of Daniel Webster. To the statesman's breadth of view and 
power of generalization and ability to follow out in imagination the 
complex consequences of proposed measures; to an ardor and intensity 
of nature that made it impossible for him to think of a wrong without 
feeling a strong impulse to right it ; above all, to a philanthropy so ab- 
sorbing that it made self-sacrifice the keenest of pleasures, Horace 
Mann united a power of concentration, an ability to strive with untir- 
ing energy to reach the goal upon which he had set his heart without 
allowing himself to be diverted by any subordinate interest however 
strong, which might have enabled him to reach any honor the people 
of Massachusetts had to bestow if he could have seen his ideal in politi- 



*See p. 38, vol. I, of the Massachusetts Common School Journal. 
tSee Massachusetts Common School Journal, vol. i, p. 38. 
t See p. 298, vol. i, of Massachusetts Common School Journal. 



48 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

cal life. When lie accepted the secretaryship of the board of education 
he gave up a lucrative practice at the bar, declined reelection £o the 
senate, ceased to work in the different temperance organizations with 
which he was connected and in Avhose efforts he was profoundly inter- 
ested, in order that his entire life might be devoted to the cause of the 
common schools. During the twelve years in which he was secretary 
the great question at the bottom of all the questions that agitated the 
people was whether slavery or freedom was the corner stone of the 
American Republic 5 whether the right of petition and freedom of speech 
should be denied at the bidding of slavery, and whether the represent- 
atives of free States were bound by their oaths to support the Consti- 
tution to assist in enlarging the territory of the Republic, because the 
interests of slavery demanded it. And when these were the questions 
that were setting the hearts of patriots and philanthropists on fire, 
Horace Mann, who believed in the fundamental principles of the Dec- 
laration of Independence in every fiber of his being, who hated slavery 
as the incarnation of evil, withdrew himself entirely from political par- 
ties, and for twelve years never attended a political meeting of any kind. 
To him the improvement of the common schools was the supremely im- 
portant object. "The narrow strip of half-cultivated land that lies 
between her eastern and western boundaries," said he in one of his 
reports, "is not Massachusetts, but her noble and incorruptible men, 
her pure and exalted women, -the children in all her schools, whose 
daily lessons are the preludes and rehearsals of the great duties of 
life, and the prophecies of future eminence, these are the State." To 
make these rehearsals rehearsals of the noblest possible music — that 
seemed to Horace Mann an object worthy of thecousecration of the powers 
of any human being. And apart from the eloquent testimony of his 
life we know from definite and specific statements what he thought of 
the relation between normal schools and the improvement of the com- 
mon schools. In a speech delivered at the dedication of the State nor- 
mal schoolhouse at Bridgewater August 19, 1846, he said : 

I believe normal schools to be a new instrumentality in the advancement of the 
race. I believe that without them free schools themselves would be shorn of their 
strength and their healing power, and would at length become mere charity schools 
and thus die out in fact and form. Neither the art of printing, nor the trial l>y 
jury, nor a free press, nor a free suffrage can long exist to any beneficial and salutary 
purpose without schools for the training of teachers; for, if the character and 
qualifications of teachers be allowed to degenerate, the free schools will become 
pauper schools and the pauper schools will produce pauper souls, and the free press 
will beecome a false and licentious press, and ignorant voters will become venal 
voters, and through the medium and guise of republican forms an oligarchy of 
profligate and flagitious men will govern the land; nay, the universal diffusion and 
ultimate triumph of all-glorious Christianity itself must await the time when knowl- 
edge shall be diffused among men through the instrumentality of good schools. 
Coiled up in this institution as in a spring, there is a vigor whose uncoiling may 
whirl the spheres. 

When such a man had such an opinion of normal schools, is it any 
wonder that they succeeded? 



FIRST NOEMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 49 

But in the opinion of Henry Barnard (and there are few more com- 
petent judges), the labors of Cyrus Peirce were even more essential to 
the success of normal schools. " Had it not been for Mr. Cyrus Peirce," 
said Barnard, "I consider the cause of normal schools would have 
failed or have been postponed for an indefinite period ; " "and many 
eminent educators," said Mrs. Electa X. L. Walton, quoting the state- 
ment in her Historical Sketch of the First State ^Normal School in 
America, "have since echoed the sent intent." It is not hard to see the 
reason for this opinion. January 1, 1841, Mr. Peirce wrote the following- 
letter to Mr. Barnard, who published it in the Connecticut Common 
School "Journal ": 

You ask for a full account of my manner of instruction in the art of teaching. 
This it is not easy to give ; from what I say you may get some idea of what I attempt, 
and of the manner of it. Two things I have aimed at especially in this school: (1) 
To teach thoroughly the principles of the several branches studied, so that the pupils 
may have a clear and full understanding of the best way of teaching the same thing 
effectually to others. I have four different methods of recitation: first, by question 
and answer; second, by conversation; third, by calling on one, two, three, more or 
less, to give an analysis of the whole subject contained in the lesson; and, fourth, 
by requiring written analyses in which the ideas of the author are stated in the lan- 
guage of the pupil. I do not mean that these are all practiced at the same exercise. 
The students understand that, at all the recitations, they are at perfect liberty to 
suggest queries, doubts, opinions. At all the recitations we have more or less of dis- 
cussion. Much attention is paid to the manner in which the pupils set forth or state 
their positions. I am ever mingling, or attempting to mingle, at these exercises, 
theory and example; frequently putting the inquiry to them, not only how do you 
understand such and such a statement, but, how would you express such and such 
a sentiment, or explain such a principle, or illustrate such a position to a class which 
you may be teaching ? Let me, I say to them, hear your statements, or witness your 
modes of illustrating and explaining. In this connection I frequently call them to 
the blackboard for visible representation. They make the attempt; I remark upon 
their manner of doing it, and endeavor to show them in what respect it may be im- 
proved. Sometimes, instead of reciting the lesson directly to me, I ask them to im- 
agine themselves, for the time, acting in the capacity of teachers to a class of young 
pupils, and to adopt a style suitable for such a purpose. At many of our recitations 
more than half the time is spent With reference to teaching the art of teaching. Be- 
sides delivering to the school a written formal lecture once a week, in which I speak 
of the qualifications, motives, and duties of teachers, the discipline, management, 
and instruction of schools, and the manner in which the various branches should be 
taught, I am, e^'ery day, in conversation, or a familiar sort of lectures, taking up and 
discussing more particularly and minutely some point or points suggested by the 
exercises or occurrences, it may be of the day, relating to the internal operations of 
the schoolroom, or to physical, moral, or intellectual education. I say much about 
the views and motives of teachers, and the motives by which they should attempt 
to stimulate their pupils. And here I would state that my theory goes to the entire 
exclusion of the i>reiniuin and emulation system and of corporal punishment. My 
confidence in it is sustained and strengthened by a full and fair experiment for more 
than oue year in a public school, composed of 70 scholars of both sexes. I am con- 
stantly calling up real or supposed cases, and either asking the pupils what they 
would do in such case, or stating to them what I would do myself, or both. As a 
specimen of such questions, take the following, viz : On going into a school as teacher, 
what is the first thing you would do? How will you proceed to bring to order and 
arrange your school ? Will you have many rules, or few ? Will you announce before- 
4890— Xo. 8 i 



50 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

hand a code of laws, or make special rules as they may he needed ? What motives 
do you propose to appeal to, and what means will you adopt to make these pupils 
interested in their studies ? What method will you adopt to teach spelling, reading, 
arithmetic ? What will you do with the perseveringly idle and troublesome? What 
will you do if your scholars quarrel, lie, swear? What will you do if a scholar tells 
you he won't do as he is directed? If a question in any ordinary lesson, say arith- 
metic, comes up, which you cannot solve readily, what will he your resort? Should 
you he chiefly amhitious to teach much, or to teach thoroughly ? How would you 
satisfy yourself that your teaching is thorough, effectual? To what hranches shall 
you attach most importance, and why? Will you aim chiefly to exercise the facul- 
ties, or communicate instruction? Besides these daily discussions or conversations 
we have a regular dehate every Saturday, in which the principles involved in these 
and similar questions are discussed. 

Reading I teach hy oral inculcation of the principles as contained in Porter's 
Rhetorical Reader (which strikes me as in the main correct), and hy example, read- 
ing myself hefore the whole class ; hearing the pupils read, and then reading the 
same piece myself; pointing out their faults, and calling upon them to read again 
and again, and even the third and fourth time. They also read to each other in my 
presence. This is a most difficult art to teach. Very few good readers are found 
either in our schools or elsewhere. Spelling I teach hoth orally and hy writing from 
the reading lesson, for I think each method has its advantages. Orthography has not 
yet received quite its merited attention in our schools. Most persons in husiness life 
have to write ; few comparatively are called upon to read puhlicly ; for this reason 
it is more important to he a correct speller than a fine reader. 

I have adopted no text-hook in teaching geography. Worcester's is chiefly used. 
My method has heen to give out a subject (a particular country, e. g.) for examina- 
tion. The class make searches, using what maps and hooks they have at command, 
and get all the information of every kind they can, statistical, historical, geo- 
graphical, of the people, manners, religion, government, husiness, etc., and at the 
recitation we have the results of their researches. Giving to each a separate sub- 
ject, I sometimes require the pupils to make an imaginary voyage or journey to one, 
two, three, or more countries, and give an account of everything on their return. 
If I were to teach geography to a class of young beginners, I should commence with 
the town in which they live. * 

This letter alone is sufficient to show that Cyrus Peirce was a teacher 
of rare ability. But we have an abundance of more direct testimony. 
Mrs. Horace Mann, in her memoir of her husband, says : 

Mr. Peirce proved to have qualifications for his* vocation even heyond his [Mr. 
Mann's] expectations. He not only knew how to teach with precision, hut he evoked 
from his pupils such a force of conscience as insured thorough study and assimilation 
of whatever was taught. When Mr. Mann first visited this school at Nantucket he was 
charmed hy the evidence of power that the whole management and all the recitations 
of the school evinced ; and when he spoke of it afterwards to gentlemen of the place, 
one of the most respectable citizens said to him that he had lived 40 years on the 
south shore and could always tell Mr. Peirce's scholars whenever he met them in the 
walks of life by their mode of transacting business and by all their mental habits, 
which were conscientious, exact, reliable. * * * He [Mr. Mann] always felt that 
to Mr. Peirce was chiefly owing the very rapid and unquestionable value in all eyes 
of this new movement. 

Mr. Samuel J. May, whose opportunities for judging of the extent of 
the influence of Cyrus Peirce entitle his opinion to the greatest weight, 
said: 

* In the same letter Mr. Peirce says that Abott's Teacher is the text-book used in 
the art of teaching. 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 51 

"We are indebted for the establishment of normal schools to him more than to any 
other individual. * * * Mr. Peirce's profound reverence for truth is the basis of 
his character as a man and a teacher — truth in everything — the whole truth, the exact 
truth. Never have we known another so scrupulous. His reverence for truth was 
ever active, ever working in him, and renewing itself day by day in some higher mani- 
festation or some deeper expression. Although he frequently, if not every day, closed 
his school with the admonition, "My pupils, live to the truth," yet it never seemed 
like a A^ain repetition ; it always appeared to come fresh from his heart. * * * 

To pupils of a facile, temporizing, slipshod disposition Mr. Peirce was tedious, be- 
cause of his particularity. Not partly, almost, very nearly right would ever satisfy 
him. Each answer that was given him to every question that he put must be wholly, 
exactly correct, so correct as to make it self-evident that the one who gave it fully 
appreciated the truth expressed by the words he used, and used such words as made 
the truth luminous to others who were capable of receiving it. This intellectual and 
moral conscientiousness soon captivated those of a kindred spirit, and in due time 
impressed the most heedless as an admirable characteristic. 

But not only by the thoroughness and faithfulness of his teaching did 
this Arnold of America prove his devotion to the cause of normal- school 
instruction. When he was on his way to Lexington to open the school 
there, he said to his wife, "Harriett, I would rather die than fail," and 
he meant it. He not only did all the teaching, hut he was his own jani- 
tor. He could not find anyone who would never fail to do everything 
properly and punctually, and besides he did not want to increase the 
expenses of his pupils by adding to the amount of incidental expenses 
which they had to pay. Accordingly, he allowed himself but four hours 
of sleep. When the weather was very cold he would go at 11 or 12 at 
night and fill up the furnace, and again at 3 or 4 in the morning, to in- 
sure that the room would be comfortable when school was opened. After 
he had attended to the fires at the latter hour, he would sweep the snow 
from the steps when that was necessary, shovel paths around the house, 
bring water enough from a well near by to last during the day, and then 
study till school time. He carefully prepared every lesson he had to 
teach. It is no wonder that, as Horace Mann said, it came very near 
being a drawn game ; that he not only succeeded, but came very near 
dying. 

We have seen that the school opened with 3 pupils. Before the end 
of the term there were a dozen. The next term a model school was 
organized. It contained 33 pupils, whose ages ranged from 6 to 10. 

But in spite of the excellent work done by Mr. Peirce and Mr. S. P. 
Newman in the normal school at Barre, a desperate attack was made 
upon these institutions and the board of education in the legislature in 
1810. On the 3d of March of that year the committee on education was 
directed by the house of representatives to consider the expediency of 
abolishing the board of education and the normal schools ; and on the 
7th of March the majority of the committee made a report recommending 
that both institutions be abolished, and appended to their report a bill 
for carrying their recommendation into effect. The following are some 
of the objections urged by the majority of the committee against the 
board of education : 



52 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The board lias a tendency, and a strong tendency, to engross to itself the entire 
regulation of our common schools, and particulary to convert the legislature into a 
mere instrument for carrying its plan into ex., ?ution. 

If the hoard has any actual power it is a dangerous power, trenching directly upon 
the rights and duties of the legislature ; if it has no power, why continue its exist- 
ence at an annual expense to the Commonwealth? 

As a mere organ for the collection and diffusion of information on the subject of 
education, the board seems to your committee to be, in several respects, very much 
inferior to those voluntary associations of teachers which preceded the existence of 
the board, and which, perhaps, suggested the idea of it. 

A very cursory examination of these documents (the reports issued by the board 
of education) will suffice to show that, so far from continuing our system of public 
instruction upon the plan upon which it was founded, and according to Avhich it has 
been so long and so successfully carried on, the aim of the board appears to be to re- 
model it altogether after the example of the French and Prussian systems. [Accord- 
ingly] The establishment of the board of education seems to be the commencement 
of a system of centralization and of monopoly of power in a few hands, contrary, in 
every respect to the true spirit of, our democratic institutions, and which, unless 
speedily checked, may lead to unlooked for and dangerous results. 

The right to mold the political, moral, and religious opinions of his children, is a 
right exclusively and jealously reserved by our laws to every parent; and for the 
government to attempt, directly or indirectly, as to these matters, to stand in the 
parent's place, is an undertaking of very questionable policy. Such an attempt can 
not fail to excite a feeling of jealousy with respect to our public schools, the results 
of which could not but be disastrous. A prominent measure already brought for- 
ward by the board of education, as a means of molding the sentiments of the 
rising generation, is the project of furnishing, under the sanction of the board, a 
school library for each district in the Commonwealth. It is professed, indeed, that 
the matter selected for this library will be free both from sectarian and political ob- 
jections. Unquestionably the board will endeavor to render it so. Since, however, 
religion and politics in this free country are so intimately connected with every 
other subject, the accomplishment of that object is utterly impossible, nor would it 
be desirable if possible. 

Another project, imitated from France and Prussia, and set on foot under the super- 
intendence of the board of education, is the establishment of normal schools. Your 
committee approach this subject with some delicacy, inasmuch as one-half the ex- 
pense of the two normal schools already established has been sustained by private 
munificence. If, however, no benefit in proportion to the money spent is derived 
from these schools, it is our duty as legislators, injustice,- not only to the Common- 
wealth, but to the private donor, to discontinue the project. Comparing the two nor- 
mal schools already established with the academies and high schools of the Common- 
wealth, they do not appear to your committee to present any peculiar or distinguish- 
ing advantages. Academies and high schools cost the Commonwealth nothing; and 
they are fully competent, in the opinion of your committee, to furnish, a competent 
supply of teachers. * * * It appears to your committee that every person who 
has himself undergone the process of instructing must acquire by that very process 
the art of instructing others. * * * Considering that our district schools are 
kept on an average for only 3 or 4 months in the year, it is obviously impossible, and 
perhaps it is not desirable, that the business of keeping these schools should become 
a distinct and separate profession, which the establishment of normal schools seems 
to anticipate. 

Any man who includes among his acquaintances n number of pessi- 
mists should have a number of copies of this entire report printed for 
their especial benefit. That 184 out of 430 members of the house of 
representatives of the State of Massachusetts voted for a bill to aboL- 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 53 

ish the board of education and the normal schools, based on such rea- 
sons, is as striking a proof as I can furnish of the progress which we 
have made in educational directions in the last fifty years. I should 
have been glad to be able to publish the entire document as a histor- 
ical curiosity. It has the same kind of interest as the instruments used 
by the prehistoric cave-dwellers ! 

A minority of the committee, Messrs. John A. Shaw and Thos. A. 
Greene, submitted a minority report 4 days later — March 4, 1840. I do 
not deem it necessary to make an abstract of it. It is a thoroughly 
modern document, just such a. clear, conclusive, crushing demonstration 
of the fallacies contained in the report of the majority as we should 
expect from a committee of the National Educational Association. The 
minority appended to their report two letters written by George B. 
Emerson, who had been principal of the Boston high school, and was 
then teacher of a school for young ladies, and from Dr. Samuel G. 
Howe, director of the Institution of the Blind, at South Boston, respect- 
ively, in reply to a letter from Mr. Greene asking their opinion of the 
normal school at Lexington. I make short quotations from each: 

I very much regretted [said Mr. Emerson] that you could not have joined us in 
the visit, to which you refer in your note of this morning, to the normal school at 
Lexington. I spent the day with more pleasure than I ever before received from a 
similar examination. 

I had, as you know, high expectations of the effect of special instruction in the 
preparation of teachers. But what I saw far surpassed what I had expected. The 
kind of instruction given as to the preparation to he made by a teacher, the branches 
to be taught, the methods of teaching, and the modes of influencing and governing 
pupils, were such as might have been expected from a long-enlightened and well- 
directed experience. But the facility with which these were communicated sur- 
prised me, and the interest in the pursuit, which I found to have been excited, was 
such as I never before witnessed. * * * This school [the model school], had 
been in operation but little more than half a year, and several of the young ladies 
had been there only a few weeks. Yet I am confident from what I saw of their 
modes of teaching that those individuals will show the effects of those few weeks of 
special instruction all the remainder of their lives. They can never teach in the 
blind and lifeless way in which thousands of elementary schools are taught. 

And if the spirit which I saw exhibited may be taken as an indication of the 
influence which would be exerted in a longer course I will say without hesitation 
that so amply qualified teachers are not now to be found in the elementary schools 
of the State as would be formed among the individuals now at the school by a full 
course of instruction, such as is designed. 

In the normal school the object seemed to be — for I had no opportunity of learning 
what are the intentions of the principal — first, to give great thoroughness in those 
branches which are of the greatest importance in the common elementary schools, 
such as reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. ; next, to add those studies which would 
give an acquaintance with the minds and characters of children, just as, in an agri- 
cultural school, we should expect to see communicated an acquaintance with plants 
and the nature of soils ; and lastly, to give some knowledge of those principles of 
science on which children are most inquisitive, and with which, therefore, a well- 
qualified teacher's mind should be amply stored. 

These all were admirably well taught; and, what was still better, the pupils 
seemed to have imbibed in a most remarkable degree the zeal and earnestness which 
are so essential to success in a teacher, and which yet are so uncommon. * * * 



54 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Dr. Howe said: 

I have received your uote in which you ask my opinion of the normal school at 
Lexington. * * * 

I can express my opinion the more confidently because I have more than once 
visited the school ; because I have examined the pupils in their various branches of 
study ; and because I have had other opportunities of knowing the principles of the 
system of instruction. * * * 

It has been in my power to examine many schools in this country and in various 
parts of the world; but I am free to declare that, in my opinion, the best school I 
ever saw in this or any other country is the normal school at Lexington. / 

The discipline of the school is perfect; the pupils regard their teacher with pro- 
found respect, yet tender affection; their interest in their studies is deep and con- 
stant ; their attainments are of a high order ; and they thoroughly understand every 
subject as far as they go. 

But not for these things do I give this school the preference, for others in this 
country and in Europe may equal it in these respects; but I prefer it because the 
system of instruction is truly philosophical ; because it is based upon the principle 
that the young mind hungers and thirsts for knowledge as the body does for food; 
because it makes the pupils not merely recipients of knowledge, but calls all their 
faculties into operation to attain it themselves, and, finally, because, relying on the 
higher and nobler parts of the pupils' nature, it rejects all addresses to bodily fears 
and all appeals to selfish feelings. * * * 

There is one point of view, however, in which this school particularly interested 
me, and in which it presented a beautiful moral spectacle, the memory of which will 
dwell long in my mind. It was the fact that every pupil seemed impressed with a 
deep sense of the importance of the calling which she was to follow. They seemed 
to feel that at least the temporal weal or woe of hundreds of human beings might be 
dependent upon the fidelity with which they should perform their duty as teachers. 
Consequently everyone was desirous of becoming acquainted with the philosophy of 
mind, and they received such excellent instruction that they seemed to understand 
the various springs and incentives to action which exist in a child's bosom. * ' * * 

I will only repeat to you what I have said to others, that if, instead of the 25 teach- 
ers who will go out from the normal school at Lexington, there could go out over 
the length and breadth of Massachusetts 500 like them to take charge of the rising 
generation, that generation would have more reason to bless us than if we should 
cover the whole State with railroads like a spider's web, and bring physical comforts 
to every man's door, and leave an overflowing treasury to divide its surplus among 
all the citizens. 

These letters give a new meaning to that saying of Henry Barnard, 
"Had it not been for Mr. Cyrus Peirce I consider the cause of normal 
schools would have failed or have been postponed for an indefinite 
period." 

At the end of three years Mr. Peirce's health broke down and he was 
obliged to resign. He was succeeded by the Eev. Samuel J. May. Mr. 
May was an ardent philanthropist, and he proved a very successful 
teacher "His success in the school was complete, giving entire satis- 
faction to all but himself." Under his management the attendance more 
than doubled. When he took charge of the school there were 31 stu- 
dents, and at the end of two years there were 66. 

Thus the school outgrew its accommodations, and as the people of 
Lexington did not seem disposed to exert themselves to provide for it, 
Mr. May looked elsewhere. He found in the village of West Newton 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 55 

suitable buildings and grounds which could be bought for $1,500. But 
where was the money to come from? The board of education had no 
funds which could be used for such a purpose. In this juncture Mr. 
Mann appealed to a warm personal friend, who was at the same time a 
friend of education. Rushing into the office of the Hon. Josiah Quincy, 
he exclaimed,, " Quincy, do you know of anyone who wants the highest 
seat in the Kingdom of Heaven, for it is to be bought for $1,500 V> Mr. 
Quincy asked for an explanation, and when he understood the matter 
he drew his check for $1,500, and directed Mr. Mann to buy the build- 
ing and take a deed in his own name, and in case the normal school sys- 
tem should be abandoned to devote the proceeds that might arise from 
a sale of the buildings to the advancement in any way he pleased of 
common- school education. 

About this time Mr. May, finding that Mr. Peirce's health was suffi- 
ciently recovered to enable him to take charge of the school, promptly 
resigned August 31, 1844, to make way for the reappointment of Mr. 
Peirce. Mr. Peirce was reappointed September 1, 1844. 

Not long after Mr. May's resignation (November 6, 1844), he addressed 
a letter to the board of education concerning the Lexington normal 
school, obviously intended, however, rather for the people of Massachu- 
setts. His avowed reason for writing was that there were still some 
persons in the community who doubted the utility of normal schools. 
He had therefore thought it incumbent upon him to put the board in 
possession of all the information on that point he had been able to gather. 
After stating that he had resigned to make way for one who had much 
more experience and possessed much more skill than himself in the art 
of teaching, he said that there had been 243 pupils admitted into the 
school since it was opened. Of that number 64 were then in the school ; 
25 had left at the close of the last term, too recently to have made a 
record; 20 had not completed the course; and 13 who had completed 
the course had not engaged in teaching. That would leave 122 who had 
been and were teaching in different parts of the State and the country, 
and by their success or failure he thought the utility of normal schools 
might in some measure be fairly inferred. 

Before proceeding to lay before the board some of the evidence he had 
collected on this point, he made some statements that are worthy of very 
careful attention. 

Let it be premised, however [he said], that it would not be fair in the legislature 
to demand that all normal pupils shall become successful teachers. It has been found 
impossible to prevent the admission into these schools of some who have been found, on trial, 
not to possess the tact or the temper necessary for imparting lenowledge, although they may 
possess talents for acquiring it. * Then, again, the term prescribed by your honorable 
body for the course of training to be pursued in the normal schools has in several 
instances been found too short to develop and bring into exercise talents that have 
undoubtedly existed. It has consequently happened in several instances that pupils 
have completed the course prescribed and have gone forth to teach, respecting whose 

* Italics by author of circular. 



56 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

ability we have felt doubtful, and yet have not felt that it would be right in us wholly to 
prevent their attempting to teach by proclaiming our belief of their inability. They have 
therefore been furnished with certificates of scholarship and good moral character (of one 
or both as they have been deserved), and allowed to go and succeed if they could.* In some 
cases they have succeeded remarkably well. In others they have failed as we expected. 
But the failure of such ought not to redound to the discredit of this institution, 
because they have not gone from us with certificates of ability to teach. While I 
had charge of the Lexington normal school, 54 (this number does not include the 25 
who left August 14) completed the course prescribed and left us, 5 of whom have 
not yet, so far as we are informed, engaged in teaching. Of the whole number, 34 
carried from me certificates of my confidence in their ability to teach and govern a 
school. Only two of these failed to realize my expectations, and one of these two is 
recovering herself. The other 20 went forth, some of them with certificates in 
which no assurance, or only a qualified belief, of their ability to manage schools was 
expressed; several without certificates of any kind. Five of these are reported to 
have kept very good schools. The rest have, some of them, done tolerably well, and 
the others have entirely failed, t 

This letter shows that in the very beginning of its history the Lex- 
ington normal school had realized that the preparation of teachers is 
not the only work of a normal school. The first passage which I have 
italicized shows that it tried to keep those who lacked the tact and 
temper of the teacher from undertaking the work of teaching; the 
second, that it realized its obligation to do what it could to assist em- 
ployers in deciding whom they ought to' employ as teachers. Of the 
three functions of the normal school: (1) To keep out of the profession 
of teaching those who have no natural aptitude for the business ; (2) to give 
to the public all the aid they can in avoiding the selection of those who, 
in spite of their efforts, have got into the profession without possessing 
those natural qualifications which are essential to success in teaching ; 
and (3) to give to intending teachers who possess the necessary qualifi- 
cations the utmost possible assistance in preparing for their work, it 
is safe to say that the first two have not received the attention they 
deserved in the normal schools of this country. While the last may be 
admitted to be the most important, the first two certainly have a high 
degree of importance. I am glad to be able to say that the Lexington 
normal school, now at Framingham, continues to maintain its reputa- 
tion in one of these particulars. A school superintendent in Massa- 
chusetts said not long ago : 

I am sometimes disappointed in teachers sent from schools which do not have a 
practice department, but I accept a recommendation from Miss Hyde with perfect 
confidence, knowing her pupils will turn out just what she says of them. She has 

* Italics by author of circular. 

t See pp. 64-65 of the Massachusetts Common School Journal, where may also be 
found extracts from some of the letters Mr. May had received in reply to a circular 
letter to teachers who had graduated at the institution, asking, among other things, 
for copies of any testimonials they had received. It is hardly necessary to say that 
they indicate a high degree of success. 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 57 

done more for the school to secure the perfect confidence of committees than perhaps 
any other teacher of the normal corps throughout the State. She has insight of 
character, and observes her pupils in actual work.* 

The limits within which I ain obliged to confine myself make it im- 
possible for me to give more than a meager outline of the history of 
this school from this time on to the present. On the 20th of March, 
1845, the legislature resolved "That the schools heretofore known as nor- 
mal schools, shall hereafter be known as State normal schools." On 
account of failing health Mr. Peirce was again obliged to resign in April, 
1849. Mr. Elam S. Stearns was appointed to succeed him. " He proved 
himself," said Mrs. Walton in her historical sketch, "a fit successor of 
Mr. Peirce and Mr. May." During his administration the popularity of 
the school became so great that it became expedient to adopt more rigid 
examinations, and insist more rigidly on the requirements for admission. 
Pupils falling short of the required age but a few days were often 
rejected. Candidates were required to give severe and binding pledges 
that they would be faithful as members of the institution, and devote 
themselves, if qualified, to teaching in the schools of the State. None 
were allowed to remain in the school who did not give promise of apt- 
ness to teach and to govern, however excellent their scholarship and 
character. The course of study was extended a half-year and made 

more thorough, and an additional 3-years' course was introduced. 

. , — ^ — . — _ 

* Quoted by Mrs. Electa N. L. Walton in her " Historical Sketch of the First State 
Normal School in America." 

Horace Mann's seventh report to the board of education contains the following 
passage: "Then come, though only in some parts of Prussia, these preliminary 
schools, where those who wish eventually to become teachers go in order to have 
their natural qualities and adaptation for schoolkeeping tested ; for it must be borne 
in mind that a man may have the most unexceptionable character, may be capable 
of mastering all the branches of study, may even be able to make the most brilliant 
recitations from day to day, and yet, from some coldness or repulsiveness of manner, 
from harshness of voice, from some natural defect in his person or in one of his 
senses, he may be adjudged an unsuitable model or archetype for children to be con- 
formed to, or to grow by ; and hence he may be dismissed at the end of his proba- 
tionary term of 6 months. At one of these preparatory schools, which I visited, the 
list of subjects at the examination, a part of which I saw, was divided into two 
classes, as follows: (1) Readiness in thinking; German language, including orthogra- 
phy and composition ; history, description of the earth, knowledge of nature, thorough 
bass, calligraphy, drawing. (2) Religion, knowledge of the Bible, mental arithmetic, 
singing, violin playing, and readiness or facility in speaking. The examination in 
all the branches of the first class was conducted in writing. To test a pupil's readi- 
ness in thinking, for instance, several topics for composition are given out, and, after 
the lapse of a certain number of minutes, whatever has been written out must be 
handed in to the examiners. So questions in arithmetic are given, and the time oc- 
cupied by the pupils in solving them is a test of their quickness of thought or power 
of commanding their own resources. This facility or faculty is considered of great 
importance to the teacher. In the second class of subjects the pupils were examined 
orally. Two entire days were occupied in examining a class of 30 pupils, and only 
21 were admitted to the seminary school, that is, only about two-thirds were consid- 
ered to be eligible to become eligible. Thus, in the first instance, the chaff is win- 
nowed out and not a few of the lighter grains of the wheat." 



58 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

On December 15, 1853, the school was removed from Lexington to 
Framingham. 

In September, 1855, Mr. Stearns resigned and was succeeded by Mr. 
George ]ST. Bigelow. "His faithfulness in details, his versatility of tal- 
ents and acquirements, with his perfect courtesy and kindly interest, 
can never be forgotten," wrote one of his pupils. "His desire to help 
young teachers and all who needed assistance and encouragement was 
characteristic of him through life, and he spared neither time nor per- 
sonal effort in his unselfish desire to benefit them. His ideas of teach- 
ing were advanced and progressive," wrote another. 

In 1866 Mr. Bigelow resigned, and was succeeded by his first assist- 
ant, Miss Annie E. Johnson. 

On the occasion of her accession, ex- Governor Washburn delivered 
an address in Framingham, in which he said : 

I congratulate you that by the experiment this day inaugurated, your sex is at last 
to have one fair field in which to vindicate the confidence which the board of educa- 
tion, in behalf of the State, have — that in the learning and skill and patriotic 
sentiment of her daughters the Commonwealth is to share an element of moral 
power which has never before been fully developed. The free states of Greece did 
not lose their independence so much from the lack of intelligence and love of liberty 
in their men as for want of the influence, the counsel, and the equal companionship 
of women. 

In their next annual report the visitors said : 

In one thing the visitors of the Framingham school take special satisfaction in 
offering this, their report of its condition the last year ; and that is, in the entire 
success of its management by a female principal and female assistants. 

Previous to the removal of the school to Framingham the practice 
school had been regarded as an absolutely essential adjunct of the normal 
school, but it was first opened in Framingham during Miss Johnson's 
administration. She began this work with a single class of children, 
which grew into a little school of 20 pupils. 

When Miss Hyde took charge of the normal school in 1875, she made 
the practice school a special and prominent feature of normal training, 
as we have already seen. The practice school now numbers about 
100 pupils, and is organized in eight classes for a course of 8 years. In 
this time they are fitted for the high school, and in addition to the usual 
subjects they are instructed in botany, zoology, history, and inventional 
geometry. The school is seated in three rooms, each under the govern- 
ment of a regular teacher who teaches a class nearly every hour, leav- 
ing five and sometimes six classes to be taught by pupil teachers. 
When one of the three teachers is not teaching herself she assists in 
the work of criticism. The pupil teachers receive their practice in the 
senior year, and so much of it as the size of the class makes possible, 
usually from 4 to 5 weeks. They spend the forenoon teaching under 
the observation of two critic teachers ; in the afternoon they have their 
regular class exercise in methods, and all other recitation work is 



FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA. 59 

omitted while they are engaged in teaching. They receive individual 
criticism from the critic teacher. The aim of this criticism is to help 
the pupil teachers to see and correct their own mistakes. "Out-and- 
dried" methods are not insisted on, but they are encouraged to make 
their own plans "within the limits of right principles and the general 
plan laid out for the class." They are held responsible for the discipline 
as well as for the government of the classes except in such serious 
cases as seldom occur, and these arelianded over to the regular teacher. 
They are given as great a variety of work as is possible, both for the 
purpose of ascertaining what kind of work they are best fitted for, and 
for the purpose of preparing them for any grade they may be called 
upon to take charge of. 

In answering the question as to the effect of this constant change of 
inexperienced teachers on the children, Miss Hyde says, "it is both good 
and bad, but not seriously harmful. It makes them quick, thoughtful, 
and intelligent, but deficient in exactness. Drill must always be the 
weak point in a practice school." 

a The government of the school is as simple and homelike as possible. 
There are few rules, no marks, ranking, honor rolls, or artificial stimuli 
of any kind whatever." "Such a school," continues Miss Hyde, "can 
be kept in order only by a liberal supply of strong, experienced teachers, 
whose influence and example is felt by both children and pupil teachers." 

In answering the question as to what proportion of their work is pro- 
fessional, Miss Hyde says that it is all "professional, as it all has direct 
reference to teaching. But in all the common branches, and in botany, 
zoology, and physiology we divide the work into two parts, the last of 
which consists exclusively of plans for teaching with illustrative les- 
sons. The.se lessons occupy in each subject a term, or half-year." 

The normal school at Barre was closed in 1842 and reopened in West- 
field in 1844. This institution was the first normal school in the country 
to teach the objective method of teaching. I regret that I am unable 
to give a detailed account of it. The data to which I have been able 
to get access oblige me to confine myself to two extracts from a pam- 
phlet giving an account of the semicentennial exercises of the school, to- 
gether with biographical sketches of its teachers. The first is from the 
historical address delivered by Hon. J. W. Dickinson, now secretary of 
the board of education of Massachusetts, and is as follows : 

At a meeting of the board held July 26, 1856, a new principal [J. W. Dickinson] of 
the normal school at Westfield was appointed in place of William H. Wells, resigned. 
He received his elementary education in the public schools at South Williamstown, 
and his preparation for college at Greylock Institute in same place, and at Williston 
Seminary, Easthampton. He entered Williams College in September, 1848, and grad- 
uated with his class in August, 1852. In September following he received the ap- 
pointment of assistant teacher in the normal school at Westfield. He served under 
Mr. Rowe, principal, until March, 1853, and again until April, 1856, under Mr. Wells. 
During these 4 years of service as assistant teacher he made the principles and meth- 
ods of teaching the subject of careful study and practice. This gradually prepared 
the way for a change in the work of the normal school. The course of study was 



60 - TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

modified with more direct reference to the professional training of the pupil teachers. 
All subjects and objects were to be taught by topics and by the analytic objective 
method. The recitations were to be conducted no more by question and answer, but 
independently by the pupils, who were to teach the review lesson to one another as 
it had been taught to them. These changes in the methods of teaching required a 
preparation of the means, so that there might be no violation of the principles upon 
which the method was founded. This turned the attention of the school to collect- 
ing such objects, illustrative apparatus and reference books, as were necessary for a 
thorough system of objective teaching and study. The branches of learning required 
to be taught in the public schools were taken up, with special reference to teaching 
them to others in accordance with the laws of the human mind that control it in the 
acquisition of knowledge and development of its faculties. That the pupils of the 
normal school might have an opportunity of observing the application of their meth- 
ods to real children, the town generally provided the school of observation, where 
they could add experience to their theories. The results of these things soon ap- 
peared in the professional spirit excited in the different departments of the normal 
school, in the improved work of its graduates, and in the new interest which their 
good example produced throughout the country in the study of the philosophy of 
education. The Westfield normal scbool was the first to show that all branches of 
learning may be taught by the same objective method, and that elementary knowl- 
edge should be taught with special and constant reference to the scientific knowledge 
which is to be occasioned by it. 

I quote the following sentences from the biographical sketch of Dr. 
Dickinson, found in the same pamphlet : 

Mr. Dickinson early became a most diligent student of pedagogical science, and 
was among the first to introduce those reforms in teaching which have since been 
working their way slowly into the best schools of the country. The Westfield nor- 
mal school was the first to reduce the teaching of all subjects as well as objects to 
the analytic objective method, requiring the learner to use his own active power in 
working out, under the simple direction of the teacher, his own problems for himself. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 

The history of the normal school at Oswego, N. Y., constitutes an im- 
portant chapter not only in the history of the training of teachers, but in 
the history of the public schools of this country . It originated, indeed, 
out of the necessities of the public schools of Oswego. In the spring of 
1853 these schools were organized and consolidated under a board of edu- 
cation. Under the new arrangement a mixed system of schools went 
into operation, and a close classification was soon adopted. So thor- 
oughly was this perfected that each teacher had but a single class of 
children of nearly the same age and of the same stage of advance- 
ment. Every grade had the same daily programme, so that the super- 
intendent could tell at any given hour of the day exactly what exer- 
cises were going on in any school in the ci<ty. All promotions were 
made upon the basis of examinations conducted under the direction of 
the superintendent, who prepared all the questions and marked all the 
answers on a scale of ten. The standings were published in the annual 
report. 

But Mr. E. A. Sheldon, who had been elected superintendent of 
schools in 1853, and who had originated this educational machine, was 
not satisfied with it. It seemed to him that something was wanted to 
give it life. As a mere machine, it was, indeed, worthy of all admira- 
tion. The definite tasks assigned to each teacher and pupil, each hour 
in the day, each day in the week, each week in the month, each 
month in the year, and each year in the course, were performed with 
praiseworthy exactness. Every rule and every definition was com- 
mitted to memory with an exactness that defied criticism and applied 
with wonderful celerity. The system was, indeed, a perfect body, but it 
was dead, or rather it had never been alive. Words, words, words, were 
thrown iuto the hopper and the grist was nothing but words. The 
children could answer with great readiness all questions relating to 
what they had learned in their text-books, but outside of their text- 
books they were helpless. In a word, the system was an excellent ma- 
chine for transferring the utmost possible amount of text-book infor- 
mation into the minds of the children, but as a means of developing 
latent powers, of cultivating permanent intellectual interest, of quick- 
ening and expanding the whole intellectual life, it was very defective 
indeed. 

61 



62 TKAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Mr. Sheldon began to be vaguely conscious of this without knowing 
how to remedy it. He had not given much attention to psychology, 
and had little acquaintance with educational theories. But the whole 
bent of his mind, and all the circumstances of his early life, led him to 
insist that an education should be real, that it should be so related to the 
work of life as to be practical in the best sense of the word. With that 
deep love of humanity which has been the motive of all great teachers, 
he improved the opportunity offered by some months of leisure in 1848 
to look into the condition of the poor in Oswego. The ignorance and 
misery which he found among them amazed him. Day after day he 
was to be found in the poorest and most wretched parts of the city, be- 
coming acquainted with the wants and miseries of the poor. Full of 
pity for them he induced some of his friends to help organize an " Or- 
phan and Free School Association," whose object was to found a home 
for the orphans and to enable the poorer children of Oswego to go 
to school. Through the influence of the association a room was rented 
for a school, and to his own surprise and regret, he found everyone 
looking to him to take charge of it. And so it happened that in the 
winter of 1848 and 1849 he took charge of his first school — 120 " wild 
Irish boys and girls of all ages, from 5 to 21," "utterly rude and un- 
trained." 

It was inevitable that such a school and such pupils would make a 
lasting impression upon such a man. To him, evidently, education was 
not a mere external thing, giving a certain smoothness and polish to 
the surface and leaving the interior unchanged. What his "wild Irish 
boys and girls" needed, what all men needed, he felt, was an education 
that prepares for the stern work of life, an education that animates, 
energizes and transforms the entire man. He felt that there was a 
terrible wrong in loading the memories of boys and girls with words, 
and calling it preparation for life. The feeling grew upon him that it 
would be better to bring the minds of his pupils into more direct con- 
tact with nature and reality; in a word, that the educational engine 
should be reversed, and instead of going from words to ideas, the effort 
should be first to develop ideas in the minds of children, and then en- 
courage them to express them in words of their own. The suggestions 
in reference to "object lessons," in Page's "Theory and Practice of 
Teaching," the only work en pedagogy with which he was acquainted, 
seemed to him to look in the right direction. Accordingly he undertook 
to carry them out in his schools, but the results were not very satisfac- 
tory. The pupils continued practically to regard their lessons in geogra- 
phy, grammar, and arithmetic as so many exercises of the memory. 
They continued to memorize rules and definitions, and to apply them. 
They could not get ideas from their text-books and express them in their 
own language. In spite of all efforts to. the contrary, they persisted in 
going to their recitations with the language of their text-books rather 
than their own. They found it easier to memorize than to think. In 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 63 

the hope of breaking up this tendency, Mr. Sheldon had an edition of 
the geography in use published without any text, containing only the 
maps and pictures. But his teachers found it difficult to get along with- 
out their accustomed helps. They needed both facilities and direction, 
and Mr. Sheldon felt himself unable to give them either to his satisfac- 
tion. About this time he received a visit from the superintendent of 
another city in the State whose opinions were undergoing the same 
revolution as his own, and they resolved to make a beginning in the 
way of providing the facilities they thought their teachers required in 
order to do what they regarded as the proper kind of work. Mr. 
Sheldon was to prepare a set of reading charts and his friend a set of 
color charts. Shortly after this he visited the educational department 
of Canada at Toronto, where to his surprise and delight he found much 
more than he had ever hoped for. There were apparatus, charts, pic- 
tures for aid in teaching nearly every subject, books discussing educa- 
tional principles and methods, and manuals to guide teachers in their 
work. There were natural history pictures, and pictures to aid in giving 
moral and religious instruction, published in London by the " Society 
for the Promotion of Knowledge;" a " Manual of Elementary Instruc- 
tion" and "Lessons on Objects," prepared by Miss Elizabeth Mayo and 
her brother, Dr. Mayo. The latter was a distinguished English scholar 
and teacher, and a friend and pupil of Pestalozzi, with whom he had 
spent some time at Yverdun, and with whose ideas he had become thor- 
oughly imbued. Through his influence, the " Home and Colonial Train- 
ing Institution" was established at Gray's Inn Eoad, London. In this 
school were employed such men as Kriisi, the son of Pestalozzi's asso- 
ciate teacher, and Eenier, who was also associated with Pestalozzi at 
Yverdun. Indeed, the institution was an embodiment of Pestalozzi's 
ideas and principles. It consisted of a school for training teachers and 
a school of practice, and it sent out thousands of teachers who zealously 
disseminated Pestalozzi' s ideas. Under its patronage and direction many 
publications were issued intended to aid teachers in oral and develop- 
ment work. For example, there were the books of Miss Mayo already 
mentioned; "Lessons on Numbers," by Eenier; "Model Lessons," "In- 
formation on Common Objects," "Manual for Teachers of Infant Schools," 
"Graduated Course of Instruction for Infant Schools and Nurseries." 
This wonderful museum was the result of the labors of Dr. Eyerson, 
who as minister of education for Canada, had collected the best .educa- 
tional tools he could find in the various countries of Europe. 

This museum helped Mr. Sheldon to see what he wanted to do. When 
he returned to Oswego he resolved to thoroughly reconstruct the 
course of instruction and radically change the methods of teaching 
in the schools under his supervision. He resolved to begin this refor- 
mation at the bottom of the ladder and go up step by step. He 
accordingly laid out a detailed plan of work for the primary schools 
based on Pestalozzian principles. 



64 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

I regret very much that the limits within which I am obliged to 
confine myself make it impossible for me to present this course of 
study without abbreviation. Marking, as it does, an epoch in the his- 
tory of the public schools of this country, it well deserves the careful at- 
tention of those who are interested in our educational history. But for 
the details of the course I am obliged to refer my readers to the seventh 
annual report of the board of education, of Oswego, which is indeed 
almost entirely filled with a statement and explanation of the proposed 
changes. 

The principles upon which the new course was based and the aims 
it sought to realize may be briefly stated. Mr. Sheldon quoted with 
approbation the statement of principles made by the "Home and 
Colonial Infant and Juvenile School Society," of London, as underlying 
its system of primary instruction. That statement was as follows : 

That as the different faculties of children are developed at different periods, care 
should be taken to adapt their lessons to the state of their minds, in order that all 
the faculties may be called out in right order. 

That the education of the mind must begin when the exercise of the mind begins, 
and should follow precisely, both in degree and amount, the natural order of its 
development. 

That education consists, not in the amount which you can put into the mind of a 
child from without, but in the amount which it can gain from its own development 
and exercise from within. 

The object of the plan of studies was stated to be "not so much to 
impart information as to educate the senses, arouse, quicken, and de- 
velop the perceptive and conceptive faculties, lead the children to 
observe, awaken a spirit of inquiry." 

When Mr. Sheldon attempted to put this scheme into operation his 
teachers stoutly resisted. They said : " We find it more than we can 
do to accomplish all that is now required, and we have only reading, 
speUing, arithmetic, grammar, and geography." The superintendent 
replied: "I expect you will do the work required in these branches with 
very much more ease than before, and in a much more rational and effi- 
cient way." The sequel proved that he was right, as the teachers frankly 
admitted. 

The first year after the introduction of the new course of study Mr. 
Sheldon gave all his time and energy to the introduction of the new 
methods into the first year or lowest grade of the primary school. He 
met the teachers of this grade every Saturday, and durin g the follow- 
ing week he went through the schools of this grade, encouraging and 
aiding them in carrying out the instructions given the preceding Satur- 
day. The second year he pursued the same plan with the next higher 
grade. 

By this time the work began to attract attention outside Oswego, 
and the teachers thus trained were offered salaries in advance of those 
which the Oswego board felt disposed to give. Mr. Sheldon realized 
that he was trying to fill a tub whose bottom was full q( holes. He 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 65 

found that he was training' teachers for the schools of other cities, and 
that if the wants of his own schools were to be supplied some method 
must be devised for supplying all vacancies Avith trained teachers. 

With this object in view he proposed to his board to establish a de- 
partment connected with the public- school system for the training of 
teachers. They readily assented. Accordingly, on the motion of the 
committee on teachers for the year 1860, the following resolutions were 
adopted : 

Resolved, That, in connection with the high school, there be organized a depart- 
ment composed of graduates of this school and persons from abroad who may apply 
for admission, to be styled the Model Primary School Teachers' Department, the 
object of which shall be to prepare teachers for the important work of primary in- 
struction. 

Resolved, That no person shall be admitted into this department who does not hold 
a certificate of graduation from the Oswego high school, or from some institution 
whose course of study and mental discipline are equally thorough, or who shall 
not on examination give evidence that she has thoroughly mastered those English 
branches usually taught in our best academies and high schools, and that .she sus- 
tains a good moral character. 

Resolved, That the time of this course shall be one year, and shall embrace the 
following subjects of study. 

First term. — A review of botany, mental philosophy, zoology, and linear draw- 
ing in its practical application in delineating objects in nature on the blackboard. 

Second term. — Mineralogy, and review of botany continued, and moral rdiilos. 
ophy begun ; linear drawing, as last term. 

Third term. — Moral philosophy and mineralogy continued; drawing as before. 

There shall also be a course of reading, to be continued through the year, consist- 
ing of such standard works on the theory and practice of teaching as the board 
shall approve. 

Resolved, That Primary School No. 2, located in the high-school building, be re- 
garded as a model or experimental school, to be taught by the members of the 
model teachers' class, under the superintendence of such a teacher as the board shall 
provide. 

Resolved, That the division of time* between study, recitation, and practice in 
teaching shall be arranged as may seem at the time best to subserve the interests of 
the class and the school. 

Resolved, That a diploma, or certificate of graduation, be awarded to all those 
who pass through the required course of this department, and show by their practice 
in the schoolroom an aptness and ability to teach; and that the necessary steps be 
taken to entitle the holder of such certificate to equal rank and privileges with 
those holding State certificates. 

Resolved, That the terms of tuition for the admission of foreign pupils into this 
teachers' department shall be $8 per term, payable in advance. 

Resolved, That the secretary of this board be, and the same is hereby, directed to 
correspond immediately Avith the principal of the training school (for the prepara- 
tion of teachers for primary instruction), under the patronage of the Home and 
Colonial School Society in the city of London, with a view of obtaining a teacher 
of high order, one familiar with the system of primary teaching as now adopted in 
our schools, and capable of taking charge of and instructing a teachers' class such 
as the foregoing resolutions contemplate; and that he make all the necessary 
arrangements for entering upon the proposed plan on the opening of the spring term. 

4890— ISTo. 8 5 



66 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The prominence given to subjects in natural science in this course of 
study will not escape the attention of the careful reader.* The ground 
of this course was that intending teachers might be thoroughly equipped 
for training the observing powers of their pupils, and interesting them 
in natural objects. 

The resolution to import a teacher from London was not at once con- 
curred in by the board. Mr. Sheldon resolved to do it, because there 
was no one in this country who was familiar with the work to be done. 
The board hesitated, on the ground that it would involve additional 
expense, but when he assured them that it should not add one dollar 
to their expenses they withdrew their objections.! 

Mr. Sheldon accordingly immediately wrote to Mr. Eeynolds, the sec- 
retary of the Home and Colonial Society. As he was writing the letter, 
Hon. A. C. Mattoon, chairman of the teachers' committee of the board of 
education, said: "Tell them to send us one who is able to introduce the 
new methods in America." Precisely that was done when Miss Mar- 
garet E. M. Jones, who had been for 15 years engaged in the training 
of teachers in that institution, was sent to take charge of the teachers' 
department in the public schools of Oswego. Dr. Sheldon says that she 
"was a woman of rare intellectual culture, with a clear and penetrating 
mind, having a broad grasp of educational principles, with the ability 
to make them clear to her pupils." 

The school opened the 1st of May, 1861, with 9 pupils. These received 
diplomas at the end of the year, and a large number of the teachers of 
the Oswego public schools had availed themselves of the instruction 
given. The board were pleased with the work and there was no dispo- 
sition to give up the undertaking. Miss Jones, whose contract expired 
at the end of the year, was prevailed upon to stay six months longer, 
and Professor Kriisi, who, it will be remembered, had been connected 
with the Home and Colonial Institution, was invited to Oswego to assist 
her. Other assistance was also provided for, and the school opened the 
second year with a larger class and a larger corps of teachers. 

Mr. Sheldon's observations of the results of the new methods on both 
teachers and pupils, led him to believe that their general adoption in 
the schools of the country was a matter of the highest importance. 

Accordingly, at his suggestion, in December, 1861, the board of edu- 
cation sent an invitation to some of the leading educators in different 
States to come to Oswego to observe the practical workings of the new 
methods. 

* Mr. Sheldon summarized, the course as consisting of mental and natural sciences 
and the art of teaching by object lessons. 

t He was able to make this assertion good, because a number of his teachers agreed 
to relinquish half their salary for a year in consideration of the benefit they hoped 
to receive from the training class, and also because the salaries of a number of 
teachers in the/primary school Avere saved through the employment of pupil teach- 
ers from the^raining class. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. ()7 

This invitation was cordially responded to, and at the appointed time 
a goodly number of educators were present. 

Mr. Sheldon's address is worthy of being ([noted in fall. He spoke 
as follows : 

For more than eight years we have been striving to improve our schools, and when 
we compare them with what they were at the time of their organization we feel that a 
decided progress has been made; but never have their deficiencies been so apparent 
as at the present moment. Whatever the improvement, it certainly has not kept 
pace with our ideas of what it ought to be. 

We have asked you here to examine a system of instruction we have been endeav- 
oring to incorporate into our schools, for the origin of which we claim no credit; 
neither do we claim that the principles of this system are new in this country. For 
years they have been quietly and almost imperceptibly creeping into our educational 
theories, and have, although in an isolated and disjointed manner, made their way 
into our best schools. Good teachers everywhere are working more or less in accord- 
ance with these principles, modified perhaps in some degree, and are thus preparing 
the way for a system of primary education, of which they constitute the very web and 
woof. It is this feature which we claim as new in this country. We have never had 
any system of primary education, based on sound philosophical principles, carried 
out in a definite and well-arranged course. Whether such is the system to which we 
now call your attention we leave you to judge; it is for this purpose we have pre- 
sumed to invite you here to-day. Should your judgment, after a careful investiga- 
tion, accord with our own, it can but lead to a complete revolution in our methods 
of teaching; it will make teaching a profession, a title it has yet to earn. 

Among those who accepted this invitation were David X. Camp, State 
superintendent of schools in Connecticut, and principal of the State 
Normal School; D. H. Cochrane, principal of the Albany State Normal 
School; William F. Phelps, principal of the State Normal School at 
Trenton, N. J., and Miss L. E. Jfetchum, principal of the experimental 
department of the State Normal School at Bloomington, 111. 

A special committee was appointed to prepare a report. After an 
examination of three days, spent for the most part in observing lessons 
which were intended to illustrate methods of teaching, the committee, 
through its chairman, Professor Phelps, made a long and able report. 
I have only space to quote its conclusion. It is as follows : 

(1) That the principles of that system are philosophical and sound; that they 
are founded in, and are in harmony with, the nature of man, and hence are best 
adapted to secure him such an education as will conduce in the highest degree to 
his welfare and happiness, present and future. 

(2) That the particular methods of instruction presented in the exercises before 
us, as illustrative of these principles, merit and receive our hearty approbation, 
subject to such modification as experience and the characteristics of our people may 
determine to be wise and expedient. 

In conclusion, the committee beg leave to present, in the form of resolutions, ihe 
following recommendations : 

Resolved, That in the opinion of your committee the system of object teaching is 
admirably adapted to cultivate the perceptive faculties of the child, to furnish him 
with clear conceptions and the power of accurate expression, and thus to prepare 
him for the prosecution of the sciences or the pursuits of active life; and that the 
committee do recommend the adoption of the system, in whole or in part, wherever 
such introduction is practicable. 



68 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Resolved, That the .system of primary education, which .substitutes in great 
measure the teachers for the hook, demands in its instructors varied knowledge and 
thorough culture; and that attempts to introduce it by those who do not clearly 
comprehend its principles, and who have not been trained iu its methods, can only 
result in failure. 

Two years after this (in 1863), thanks to the opposition of Dr. H. B. 
Wilbur, superintendeDt of the New York State Asylum for Imbeciles, 
the Oswego methods received a still more emphatic commendation from a 
committee representing a much wider constituency. Dr. Wilbur was one 
of the gentlemen who accepted the invitation of the Oswego board, and 
was a member of the committee whose chairman made the report, the con- 
clusion of which I have just quoted. It seems that he did not concur in it. 
Accordingly, at a meeting of the New York State Teachers' Association, 
held at Bochester in 1863, he read " a most sarcastic and vindictive 
paper" against Mr. Sheldon, his schools, and methods. At the next 
meeting of the National Educational Association Dr. Wilbur made a still 
more scathing criticism of the "Oswego System of Object Instruction." 
As a result of this paper a committee, consisting of some of the ablest 
educators in the country, was appointed to make a thorough examina- 
tion of the system of instruction pursued at Oswego, and report at its 
next meeting.* Professor Greene accordingly went to Oswego and 
spent a week, and embodied the results of his very careful study of the 
Oswego system in a long and able report which he read on behalf of the 
committee before the National Education Association, held at Harris- 
burg, Pa., in the summer of 1865.t 

The report discusses three questions : 

(1) What place do external objects hold in -the acquisition of knowledge? Are 
they the exclusive source of our knowledge? 

(2) So far as our knowledge is obtained from external objects as a source, how far 
can any educational processes facilitate the acquisition of it? 

(3) Are the measures adopted at Oswego in accordance with the general principles 
resulting from these inquiries ? 

After answering the first question in the negative, the report pro- 
ceeds to discuss the second question. After some preliminary state- 
ments and definitions not necessary to be repeated here, the report pro- 
ceeds as follows. 

While an external object may be viewed by thousands in common, the conception 
of it addresses itself only to the individual consciousness. My conception is mine 
alone — the reward of careless observation if imperfect; of attentive, careful, and 



*The committee consisted of the following gentlemen: Barnas Sears, p. i>., Provi- 
dence, R. I. ; Prof. S. S. Greene, Providence, R. I.; J. L. Pickard, at that time superin- 
tendent of schools in Chicago; J. D, Philbrick, superintendent of schools in Boston, 
Mass. ; David N. Camp, State superintendent of schools in Connecticut ; R. Edwards, 
principal normal school, Illinois, and C. L. Pennell, St. Louis, Mo. 

tThis report was published in pamphlet form by the National Teachers' Associa- 
tion. It is well worthy of careful study, not only by the student of educational his- 
tory, but by the teacher who wishes to see a delightfully lucid exposition of the 
philosophy of object lessons. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 69 

varied observation if correct; between mine and yours a great gulf is fixed. No man 
can pass from mine to yours or from yours to mine. Neither in any proper sense of 
the term can mine be conveyed to you, nor yours to me. Words do not convey 
thoughts; they are not the vehicles of thoughts in any true sense of that term; a 
word is simply a, common symbol which each associates with his own conception. 

Neither can I compare mine with yours except through mediation of external ob- 
jects. And then how do I know that they are alike — that a, measure called a, foot, for 
instance, seems as long to yon as to me? My conception of a new object, which you 
and T observe together, may be very imperfect. By it, I may attribute to the object 
what does not belong to it, take from it what does, distort its form or otherwile per- 
vert it. Suppose now, at the time of observation, we agree npon a word as a sign or 
symbol for the object or the conception. The object is withdrawn; the conception 
only remains, imperfect, in my case, complete and vivid in yours. The sign is em- 
ployed. Does it bring back the original object? By no means. Does it convey my 
conception to your mind? Nothing of the kind; yon would be disgusted at the 
shapeless image. Does it convey yours to me? No; I should be delighted at the 
sight. What does it effect? It becomes the occasion for each to call up his own 
conception. Does each now contemplate the same thing? What multitudes of dis- 
similar images instantly spring up at the announcement of the same symbol — dissim- 
ilar not because of anything in the one source whence they are derived, but because 
either of inattentive and imperfect observation of that source, or of some constitu- 
tional or habitual defect in the use of the perceptive faculty. What must he the 
actual condition of children, then, at the proper age to enter school? 

After pointing out the fact that the number of clear and definite con- 
ceptions in the minds of children when they start to school is very 
likely to be overrated, and that current modes of teaching concerned 
themselves for the most part with filling" the memory with symbols 
without seeing to it that these symbols Avere used as the signs of clear 
and definite conceptions, it i^roceeds as follows : 

Nov/ against all this way of teaching language, object teaching, in any proper 
sense of the term, raises an earnest and perpetual protest. 

But what is object teaching? Not that so-called object teaching which is con- 
fined to a few blocks and cards to be taken from the teacher's desk at set times, to 
exhibit a limited round of angles, triangles, squares, cubes, cones, pyramids, or cir- 
cles; not that which requires the pupil to take some model of an object lesson drawn 
out merely* as a specimen, and commit it to memory; nor is it that injudicious 
method which some teachers have adopted in order to be thorough, that leads them 
to develop distinctions which are suited only to the investigations of science; nor is 
it a foolish adherence to the use of actual objects when clear conceptions have been 
formed and may* take the place of physical forms; nor is it that excessive talking 
about objects which makes the teacher do everything, and leaves the child to do 
nothing, that assigns no task to be performed — a most wretched and reprehensible 
practice; nor, again, is it that which makes a few oral lessons, without anything 
else, the entire work of the school. 

But it is that which takes into account the whole realm of nature and art, so far 
as the child has examined it, assumes as known only* what the child knows, not 
what the teacher knows, and works from the well-known to the obscurely known, 
and so onward and upward till the learner can enter the fields of science or abstract 
thought. It is that which develops the abstract from the concrete, which develops 
the idea, then gives the term. It is that which appeals to the intelligence of the 
child, and that through the senses, until clear and vivid conceptions are formed, and 
then uses these conceptions as something real and vital, [t is that which follows 
nature's order — the thing, the conception, the word, so that when this order is re- 



70 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

• 
versed the chain of connection shall not be broken. The word shall instantly occa- 
sion the conception, and the conception shall be accompanied with the firm conviction 
of a corresponding external reality. * * * It is that which, cultivates expression 
as an answer to an inward pressing want, rather than a fanciful collection of pretty 
phrases culled from different authors, and having the peculiar merit of sounding 
well. It is that which makes the school a place where the child comes in contact 
with realities just such as appeal to his common sense, as when he roamed at pleas- 
ure in the fields. * * * It is that which relieves the child's task only by making 
it intelligible and possible, not by taking the burden from him. It bids him exam- 
ine for himself, discriminate for himself, and express for himself, the teacher the 
while standing by to give hints and suggestions, not to relieve the labor. In short, 
it is that which addresses itself directly to the eye, external or internal, which sum- 
mons to its aid things present or things absent, things past or things to come, and 
bids them yield the lessons which they infold; which deals with actual existence 
and not with empty dreams — a living realism and not a fossil dogmatism. It is to 
be introduced in a systematic way if it can be done, without much form where sys- 
tem is impracticable, bat introduced it should be in some way every where. * * * 

Does the plan pursued at Oswego conform to these general principles? We answer 
unhesitatingly, in the main it does. It may not be right in all its philosophy or in 
all its practice. Whether the practice is better than the philosophy, or the philos- 
ophy than the practice, we will not pretend to say. Neither is it our object or 
purpose to appear as champions of the system, to defend it against attacks, or to 
cover up what is faulty. We simply appear to report it and our opinions upon it, 
so far as the examinations of one week will enable us to do so. * * * The 
training school, which forms a prominent feature of the system, is at present 
established in the Fourth ward school building. Besides the training school this 
building contains a city primary, with its classes A, B, C, a junior A, B, C, and a 
senior A, B, C. Each primary and each junior school is provided with a permanent 
principal and permanent assistant for each of the classes. In the Fourth ward 
school, however, only one assistant is permanently apxjointed. The place of the 
second assistant is supplied from the training school. The exercises in these two 
grades are the same throughout the city, except in the building of the training 
school, where additional exercises, hereafter to be described, are introduced. In 
this building, then, we shall find the ordinary lessons in "object teaching," as well 
as the peculiar lessons of the training school. Let us enter any primary school at 
the beginning of the year, with the C class, at the age of 5, fresh from home life, for 
the first time to enter upon school duties. They come with their slates and pencils, 
and this is all. Their first exercise is not to face the alphabet arranged in vertical 
or horizontal columns, and echo the names of the letters after the teacher in response 
to the question, "What is that?" — a question that the teacher knows they can not 
answer, and therefore ought not to ask; but some familiar object, one of the boys 
of the class, it may be, is placed before them and called upon to raise his hand; the 
(dass do the same. This is beginning with the known. Then he is called upon to 
raise his right hand. This may be an advance into the obscurely known. The class 
do the same if they can make the proper distinction; if not, the first lesson marks 
clearly the distinction between the right hand and the left. Something real and 
tangible is done. The children can now distinguish between the right ear and the 
left ear, the right eye and the left eye. Here is acquired knowledge applied. 

But what of their slates? The teacher may first give a lesson, practical of course, 
on the use of the slate and pencil. Standing at the blackboard, she utters the sound 
represented by some letter, as t. The class utters it. They repeat it till the sound 
becomes a distinct object to the ear. She then prints upon the board the letter /. 
This becomes an object to the eye. She points to it and gives the sound, they repeat 
the sound. She points again, they repeat. She gives the sound, they point. Two 
objects are associated. Now in their seats the letter t is to be made upon their slates 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 71 

till the next lesson is given. In this second lesson, an advance is made upon the 
parts of the human body, or another sound, as the short sound of a is given, then 
the character as before. Now the two sounds are put together, then the two letters. 
Two objects are combined and we have the word at. But before this lesson is given, 
the children go through with a series of physical exercises. Perhaps, next, the 
whole class is sent to the sides of the room. Here is a narrow shelf answering both 
as a table and a ledge to the blackboard. Under this are apartments containing 
beans. The children take them one by one and count. They arrange them in sets 
of two or three, etc. They unite one and one, that is bean to bean, one and two, etc. 
They take away one from two, one from three, and so on. They now return to their 
seats and make marks upon their slates, to take the place of the beans. In short 
this primary room is a busy workshop, not one idle moment. 

One year is passed in this mauner. The children have learned many useful les- 
sons; have mastered a set of reading cards; have learned to spell many words in- 
volving the short sounds of vowels and most of the consonants. They have lessons 
on form and color, on place and size, on drawing, or moral conduct, and these are 
(bunged once in two weeks. 

They are now promoted to the B class. They commence reading from the primer. 
They can write upon their slates and form tables. They have object lessons more 
difficult and more interesting. They can read the statement of the facts developed 
as they are drawn off upon the board. They can write them themselves. They now 
learn to make their own record of facts Upon their slates. * * * They make out- 
numerical tables for addition and subtraction, not by copying, but by actual com- 
binations with beans or otherwise. They thus realize these tables. In short, a 
mingling of object lessons with writing, spelling, reading, singing, physical exer- 
cise, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, elementary geography, and natural 
history, occupies their attention through the first three years. All the lessons are 
given objectively. The children realize what they learn; and this is not the mere 
theory of the system; it is, in the main, the actual working of the plan. * * * 

In the junior grade, similar but more advanced lessons are given, until the pupils 
are prepared for the senior schools, where these peculiar characteristics cease. And 
yet, be it remembered that all the exercises in the ordinary school work are intended 
to be true object lessons. 

Let us now pass to the training school. Here, it should be borne in mind, are regu- 
lar primary and junior schools under permanent teachers, who act the part both of 
model teachers and critics before the members of the normal school, or training class. 
The members of this class become alternately pupils and teachers, known under the 
name of pupil teachers. At the beginning of the term they are assigned to act as 
assistants one-half day and as pupils the other, alternating with each other during 
the term, so that each may go through every exercise. The regular teacher gives a 
jon to the class. The assistants observe and mark the methods as models for imi- 
tation both as respects the steps in the lesson and the management of the class under 
instruction. One of the assistants — a pnpil teacher — next gives a lesson. She is now 
under a double criticism; first from her equals, the other pupil teachers present; 
and. second, from the regular teacher. She is not doing fictitious but real Teaching. 
She has not first to imagine that a class of adults is a class of children, and then give 
a specimen lesson. She has a class of children, sent to school for real purposes by 
parents who entertain other views than to have their sons and daughters made mere 
subjects for experimenting. 

There is work done under the feeling of responsibility, with all the natural desire 
to succeed, nay, to excel. 

Under these circumstances the merits or demerits of her lesson will be pretty surely 
made known to her. * * 

But now the scene changes. These pnpil teachers return to the room of the train- 
ing class, and their places are supplied by the retiring set. In this room the theory 



72 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

of teaching is discussed and exemplified by practical lessons given by the normal 
teachers to small classes of children brought in from the primary or junior grades. 
These lessons are to be drawn off by the class and examined as illustrations of the 
theory. Then, again, a pupil is called upon to give a lesson to a similar class, while 
both the training class and teacher act as critics. The points of excellence and of 
defect are freely discussed, and practical hints as to the method of the lesson, its effects 
upon the class, etc., are freely given. Under this kind of training a most efficient 
corps of teachers is prepared to fill all vacancies and give increased vitality to the 
schools throughout the city. 

Occasionally the sentences and forms of expression had a bookish aspect and lacked 
spontaneousness, and there were enough of them, if captiously seized upon, to make 
the method appear ridiculous.* So, again, expressions and terms were sometimes 
evolved which would not be out of place in a scientific treatise. * * * 

These, however, at most were but spots on the face of the sun. The whole plan 
was admirable in theory and in practice. 

These long extracts enable the reader to see not only what Professor 
Greene thought of the Oswego methods but why he thought so ; and 
they contain not only an admirable exposition of the theory upon which, 
in his judgment, object teaching is based, but a detailed account of the 
modes in which the Oswego system conformed to it. Truly Dr. Wilbur 
did the cause of education very substantial service in occasioning so 
capable and painstaking a witness to make a careful and thorough study 
of the Oswego system. 

Since pupils outside Oswego were seeking admission into the training 
school, and since its graduates were supplying the schools of other i>laces 
with teachers, the Oswego board applied to the legislature for aid from the 
Statein supporting their training schools. Their application was heartily 
seconded by Hon. Victor M. Rice, who was then State superintendent 
of public instruction. Accordingly, on the 4th of March, 1863, the legis- 
lature of the State of Kew York passed an act appropriating $3,000 an- 
nually for two years to the support of the training school at Oswego, on 
condition that the people of the city furnish buildings and grounds and 
other necessary accommodations within one year from the passage of 
the act, and that 50 teachers intending to teach in the common schools 
of the State should be instructed in it for as much as 40 weeks in each 
year, and that each senatorial district should be entitled to send an- 
nually two first-class teachers on the appointment of the State super- 
intendent. 

In a circular dated the 8th of February, 1864, State Superintendent 
Rice announced that the sphool would be opened on the 17th day of 
April, following. The circular contained a statement of the objects of 
the school, the course of instruction, and the conditions of admission. 
Of the course of study it is only necessary to say that it still consisted 
substantially of " mental and natural science, and the art of teaching 
by object lessons." Candidates for appointment were required to be 
not less than 17 years of age, to give evidence of superior health, of 
good moral character, and of at least fair natural ability. They had 



I think this explains Dr. Wilbur's articles. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 73 

to possess a thorough knowledge of reading, spelling, arithmetic, geog- 
raphy, and grammar, and a fair knowledge of algebra as far as quad- 
ratic equations, the first book of geometry, the history of the United 
States, and the elements of natural philosophy. 

According to an act passed the 7th of April, 1866, the city training 
school became a State normal and training school, providing certain 
conditions were complied with, and this having been done, the buildings, 
grounds, and appliances of the school were accepted by the State 
March 27, 1867. 

The history of the institution from that date to the present need not 
detain us long. Undoubtedly there has been growth, but that has 
taken i)lace along the line, and in the direction already indicated. 

The most instructive changes have taken place in the organization of 
the school. At the outset, as Ave have seen, the school was organized 
as a strictly professional school. Candidates for admission were re- 
quired to have pursued a course of study equal in thoroughness and 
extent to that pursued in the best high schools of the State. But the 
faculty of Oswego soon discovered that the knowledge of such students 
was not sufficiently thorough, or at least that a sufficient number of 
pupils, with a sufficiently thorough preparation, could not be found to 
fill the school on that plan. Accordingly, in 1865 it was decided to add 
a course of study in the English branches to the more strictly profes- 
sional work. In 1867 the ancient and modern languages were added. 

At the beginning of this chapter, I said that the history of the normal 
school at Oswego constituted an important chapter,.'not only in the 
history of the training of teachers, but in the history of the public schools 
of this country. It constitutes no part of my plan to present in detail 
the grounds of the last statement. Nor is it necessary to do so, to con- 
vince anyone of its truth who is even tolerably well acquainted with our 
educational history for the last 25 years. Any such person knows that 
the methods of teaching in our large towns and cities have radically 
changed within that period, and that the change has been in the direc- 
tion of the reforms first introduced into the public schools through the 
practice school at Oswego. In his annual report made at the close of 
the second year after the adoption of the new methods, Mr. Sheldon 
said : " During the past year we have been honored by visits from many 
of the most prominent educators in the country for the purpose of wit- 
nessing the practical working of the system, and learning something of 
its principles in detail, and without a single exception it has met with 
their most hearty approbation. It is rapidly gaining favor in every 
quarter. It has already been adopted in several of our leading cities and 
normal schools, and wherever it goes it meets with a most enthusiastic 
reception. Among the cities that have adopted it are New York, Cin- 
cinnati, Toledo, Syracuse, and Paters< m. n Evidently there was a general 
and profound dissatisfaction with current methods. The eagerness with 
which the new system was examined and the readiness with which it was 



74 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

introduced in cities at such great distances from each other, shows that 
thoughtful educators all over the country were in a state of mind very 
similiar to Mr. Sheldon's when he went to Toronto, but as a matter of 
fact the new methods were introduced into this country through the 
schools of Oswego. 

That this institution has exercised a profound influence upon training 
schools for teachers, is just as little open to question. At the sugges- 
tion of Principal William F. Phelps, of the New Jersey State Normal 
School, Miss Lewis, principal of the primary department of the model 
school in that institution, went to Oswego to learn the new methods in 
order to introduce them into that school. Miss Jennie Stiekney, a grad- 
uate of the Salem (Massachusetts) State Normal School, after completing 
the course at Oswego, was employed by the Boston board to organize a 
city training school on the plan of the Oswego school, and train their 
teachers in the new methods. She was for many years the principal of 
this school, until it grew into the present city normal school, with Dr. 
Larkin Dunton at its head. Miss Rebecca Jones, a lady of large expe- 
rience, came from Worcester, Mass., to Oswego, and, immediately after 
graduation, was invited by the Worcester school board to organize a 
training school in £hat city on the Oswego plan, which has developed 
into the present State normal school of national reputation, with Mr. 
Russell as principal. Another graduate, Miss Pond, was invited to or- 
ganize a city training school in Lewiston, Me. Miss Mary Y. Lee, and 
Mrs. McGonnegal, two other graduates, were invited to organize a train- 
ing school in Davenport, Iowa. In addition to these, Oswego graduates 
were invited to organize training schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, Indianap- 
olis, Ind., Rochester, Syracuse, and Malone, N. Y., Dayton, Ohio, De- 
troit, Mich., Philadelphia, Pa., Washington, D. C, Reading, Pa., and 
many other smaller places in different parts of the country. 

We have seen, already, that a number of the city training schools 
organized by Oswego graduates grow into normal schools. But this 
is a very small part of the influence upon normal schools exerted 
by the Oswego school. All the State normal schools in New York, 
excepting the one at Albany, have been organized on the Oswego 
plan.* Normal College in New York City was organized on the same 
plan, with Oswego graduates to do the work in methods and criticism. 
When the normal school at Winona, Minn., was organized, systematic 
work in methods and practice in teaching under criticism, under the 
influence of Oswego, was made a part of the regular work of the school, 
and Oswego graduates were employed as critic and method teachers. 
The three other normal schools which have since been organized in 
Minnesota have followed the same plan, and have employed Oswego 
graduates to do the professional work. The State normal school of 
Indiana, at Terre Haute, was organized on the same plan, with Oswego 
graduates as method and critic teachers. The normal school at Normal 



The Albany school is about to be organized on the same plan. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT OSWEGO, N. Y. 75 

Park has, for many years, employed Oswego graduates for method and 
other work. Besides these institutions, Oswego graduates have been 
called to do similar work in a number of the State normal schools of 
Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, 
Maine, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Nebraska, Missouri, Mississippi, Califor- 
nia, Kansas, and Iowa. 

This will give some idea of the direct influence exerted by Oswego, 
but in the nature of the case the indirect influence was even more 
powerful. As to the significance of this influence I will state my 
opinion in another chapter. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 

We have seen that one of the Oswego graduates was invited by the 
Worcester school board to organize a training school in that city. By 
the terms of a resolution which went into effect June 25, 1871, the 
board of education of the State of Massachusetts were authorized and 
required to establish a State normal school in Worcester. This was done 
accordingly, and on the 11th of September, 1874, the exercises of dedi- 
cation took place, and on the following Tuesday the school was opened 
to pupils. 

But I do not propose to write a history of the institution. I wish 
merely to give a full and somewhat detailed account of two features of 
it, both of which were new in this country at the time of their intro- 
duction there; I allude to its system of apprenticeship, and to its 
method of encouraging its pupils to make a study of children. 

The system of apprenticeship consists of systematic observation of 
schools and actual practice in teaching under the joint supervision of 
the city superintendent of schools and the faculty of the normal school.* 
The general character of the system may be described as follows: Aftei 
having been in the school a year and a half, or three terms, the student 
is allowed to go into one of the public schools of the city of Worcester 
to serve as assistant to the teacher of that school. His work as assist- 
ant consists in taking part in the instruction, management, and general 
work of teaching, under the direction of the teacher, and even in acting 
as substitute for the teacher for an hour, a half-day, or a day, at the 
discretion of the latter and with the approval of the superintendent. 
But one student at a time is assigned to any one teacher, but each stu- 
dent serves in at least three grades of schools in the course of his term 
of service, the duration of which is six months, or half a school year. 
After finishing his apprenticeship the student resumes his course at 
the normal school, spending another half-year there before receiving 
his diploma. During the period of apprenticeship 4 days of each week 

*My account of this system and of the method of teaching psychology consists of 
summaries and abstracts of, and in some cases direct quotations from, the cata- 
logue of the school, and from an article in the September (1889) number of the New 
York Academy, by Principal Russel, ami from very full answers to detailed ques- 
tions which 1 have received from the principal. 
76 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MANS. 77 

are devoted exclusively to it by those employed in the work. One day 
of the week they spend in the normal school in the following- manner: 

They hold such consultations with the teachers of the school, and 
make such use of books, as may be most helpful to them in their 
immediate work as apprentices. 

They make informal statements to the school of such facts of their 
experience as may be of advantage to the other students to know, con- 
cerning- ways of teaching, methods of discipline, and the like, keeping in 
mind always the private character of the daily life of the school room, 
and under special warning against revelations that might seem objec- 
tionable. 

Each apprentice keeps a diary of the occupations and experience of 
every day's service, and this record is inspected by the faculty of the 
normal school. He also makes out a report at the end of his term in 
which he gives his own estimate of his success. 

I give below copies of diaries for a week, kept by several of the 
apprentices, not however with any idea of their being published : 

Monday, November 18 : To-day has been nay pleasantest day in this school. The 
fourth grade seems to realize that I have something to do with them, and they have 
been more orderly. 

1 attribute this fact partly to my not having had any of their classes before. We 
began the study of the United States, and the children seemed to take great interest 
in the geography lesson. I didn't care so much about the language lesson, because I 
never liked the study, but in my attempt to interest the children I became interested 
myself. 

The programme has been more varied to-day, and the children have not known what 
was coming next. I think this fact held their attention and interest and made the 
school quieter. 

Tuesday, November 19: This morning it was more difficult to hold the attention of 
the fourth grade in the second lesson in verbs. The boys almost all gave character- 
istic ones — jump, fight, march, etc. 

One day last week a boy named , a bright colored pupil, left a purse made 

of two shells on the desk. I asked him this noon if he did not want it. He said, 
"Np, you can have it." I declined it in a way not to hurt his feelings, I thought. 
Afterwards, when I told Miss M. about it, she suspected something wrong, and 
questioned him. He seemed to get on all right with the questions until asked why 
he did not give it to me that day. He couldn't answer that. Miss M. thought 
perhaps he was afraid to take it home for fear he would be scolded for buying it, but 
he said they knew at home that he paid a quarter for it. 

There still remains some mystery about the purse. 

Wednesday, November 20: It was suggested to-day that we ask the teachers 
whom we are with to write the criticisms they make, so that they may have more 
weight. 

Miss M. came to-day and told us about an experiment she had tried in the boys' 
high school in Boston. One word was written on the blackboard each day, and the 
boys were asked to write the picture formed in their minds by the sight of the 
written word. 

Thursday, November 21: This morning I had charge of everything about the 
room and Miss M. played visitor. * I had not had all the work before, and I found it 
something of a task to keep to the programme and have enough work for both grades. 
But I enjoyed the day, and found the children quite orderly. I think having the 
school in that way, with Miss M. to fall back on in case of an emergency, will be a 
great help to me when I am left alone for a half-day. 



78 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

This morning I explained what a bulletin is, and said we would try to have one 
in school. It took some time to make them understand what I meant, and after I 
had answered all the questions and told them I would write it to-morrow and show 
them how, several children asked me if they should bring newspapers, and one girl 
brought me a " telegram." 

One girl has pleased me by asking two or three times if she may read "The 
Charge of the Light Brigade." I don't know where she got the idea, but it seems 
to run in her mind. 

Friday, November 22 : I have become so interested in the geography lesson that I 
am inclined to hurry the children. Miss M. cautioned me about going on to a new 
subject before I have drilled on the old one. I made out the average age of the 
children and found it to be 10 years 4 months. I wrote my first bulletin this morn- 
ing. When I looked over the papers to find items it seemed impossible to find 
something suited to the age of the children. I was tempted at first to write about 
Brazil, but came to my senses when I thought, "They don't even know the name." 
But we found a good deal to talk about, and I enjoyed it as much as the pupils. 

Here is another : 

Monday, September 30 : This morning when I arrived at school my teacher told 
me that she was to substitute in the first grade for awhile, and that I must go on 
as usual. I was frightened, but after I was fairly in the schoolroom I found it 
easy to go on. The children did very well, and I had no trouble. When Miss I. 
came back I was sorry to see her. 

I had an unusually interesting lesson with the second grade this morning. As 
this is the first lesson in the morning, the children usually give good attention ; but 
it seemed to me to-day that they were really interested. On the contrary, the after- 
noon lesson dragged more than usual. 

Tuesday, October 1 : This afternoon I gave the language lesson to the second grade 
as usual. I took up questions. The children gave them to me and I wrote them on 
the board. They seemed to take hold of this better than they did of declarative 
sentences. After they had copied the questions written on the board, some made 
up questions of their own and wrote them on their slates. 

I remember that one apprentice said that she did not use the word ' ' sentence " in her 
school. I found that my teacher used it and that the children understood it. 

I still have some trouble in the number lesson to keep the attention. 

Wednesday, October 2: At the normal school, as Mr. Russell was absent at the 
second period, we had a talk among ourselves. I enjoyed it and heard some good 
suggestions. 

Miss read us more of President Eliot's article, which continued to be inter- 
esting. 

I enjoyed the platform exercises. 

Our periods with Miss J are always pleasant. I felt rather discouraged at hearing 
we were not to use books. I have not decided yet how I am to manage in the dress- 
ing room. 

Wednesday night : I feel discouraged, but at the same time eager for Thursday. 
When I hear the rest talk, I feel that I have not done anything. 

Thursday, October 3: This has been one of my good days. I have been watching 
the children playing at a new game, Avhich has suddenly become the rage. They tie a 
string to each corner of their handkerchief. Then these four strings are tied together 
and a stone is tied on. The handkerchief is taken in the middle and thrown into the 
air. It turns over and comes down like a balloon. Both boys and girls are playing 
with this toy, and some have considerable skill in throwing it. 

My teacher told me to-day that I spelt too many words for the children in The 
reading lesson. I am glad she tokl me, for it seems to me, when I think of it, that 
I have spelt a great many. I was glad to have her make some criticism, for she does 
not say much to me about my work. I did well without a book. I enjoyed it, and 
the children seemed quieter. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 79 

Friday, October 4 : This morning Miss J. came in. I was glad to see her, and I did 
not feel greatly embarrassed. I had a number lesson with the second grade while 
she was in, which is not my "show-off" class. Still I was glad to have it, because 
it has not been interesting to me or the children, and Miss J. gave me several sugges- 
tions about it. 

After recess I had the same class and tried some of her suggestions. The children 
seemed more lively. 

The school guessed words for a few minutes this afterneen. One stood in the floor 
and said "I am thinking of a word beginning with a" (b, c, etc.). Then the one who 
guessed correctly gave the next word. The children liked it, and the teacher told me 
that later in the term they grow skillful in choosing words. For instance, last term 
one child took "soot" in the chimney. 

Here is another : 

Monday, November 18 : As there was no school Saturday, Miss H. gave a drawing 
lesson to-day. I went around among the children to help them. I was interested in 
watching one boy draw, he drew so nicely and seemed to have a good idea of form, 
finding his own mistakes. 

In the geography lesson we continued a review of the United States. When the 
Children recited they did not do as well as when we began it on Friday. I directed 
a lesson in grammar. I tried to make a point of having good order and succeeded in 
a degree. After the spelling lesson, as there was a few moments left, Miss H. said 
she would finish a fairy story which the children had begun to read. I had to laugh 
to see the positions of some of the children as she read. Their necks were stretched 
out and they looked eagerly at her until she finished. 

Tuesday, November 19 : For reading to-day we began to review. I supposed that 
the pupils would not like to read again what they had read before. On the contrary, 
they were interested in the story and willing to talk. For arithmetic I gave eight 
examples in which dollars and cents were to be multiplied, as $7.20 X 43 = ?. The 
children did better with these to-day than ever before. Some finished very quickly 
and I gave these other examples on their slates. They liked this, and a few asked 
me to give them some on their slates. I think the lesson in grammar to-day was the 
most interesting of any I have given yet. I explained gender, giving only the mas- 
culine and feminine. I gave a few examples and asked the children to give others. 
I varied the lesson a great deal by changing^aronnd with my questions. They were 
not quite as still as usual, but they were interested in the lesson, and in their eager- 
ness to answer and tell were a little noisy. At the end of the lesson I thought they 
understood what I had been talking about pretty well. They were pleasant and I 
laughed with them, and although it was dark and disagreeable outside Ave did not 
mind it inside. I was interested in the spelling match and enjoyed it as much as the 
children did. 

Wednesday, November 20: To-day Mr. Russell read us a very interesting letter 
from a graduate. He also spoke about the observation of children to awaken our in- 
terest in it. The observations made so far have been very good. Dr. K., a teacher 
from N., visited the school a few days ago and liked very much our way of studying 
psychology through the observation of children. He thought the recording of facts 
about ourselves showed that there were good relations between the principal and 
ourselves. Mr. Russell said that telling about our own childhood made us have more 
sympathy with children and understand them better. Miss W., whom I think every 
pupil is glad to see, was at the normal school and told ns some very interesting results 
of experiments tried in the boys' English high school at Boston. Some words were 
written on a blackboard, one at a time, and the boys were given a few minutes in 
which to write what they saw or thought when they saw the written Avoid. Some 
of the explanations Avere very queer. 

Thursday, November 21 : The pupils were Aery disorderly to-day. We had a new 
kincj of example, arid before the lesson I had the children explain how they Avere to 



80 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



be done. They troubled me so by moving and handling and dropping things that 
Miss H. suggested that I keep them after school for about 10 or 15 minutes. She 
went home at 3 : 30 and left me to do as I pleased. The children were surprised when, 
instead of dismissing them, I told them we would explain the examples now. We 
went through all the examples in about half the time it took us in the morning. 
Yesterday it was suggested that cards be used in the recitations. I made some and 
used them to-day. The children watched me closely as I called the names from the 
cards; none seemed surprised when called on. They seemed to know that I might 
call on any one, not in regular order as before. 

Friday, November 22 : For arithmetic to-day, as the pupils made hard work of the 
examples yesterday, I changed only the numbers. They did better to-day. I enjoy 
the reading lessons very much, the children talk so freely. They tell some very in- 
teresting things. We have one girl who came from New Hampshire, and one who, I 
think, lived at one time in California. They tell us of things in those places. One 
of our boys, too, seems to have a good general knowledge of things. 

For language to-day I gave the pupils some masculine nouns, and they were to tell 
me the corresponding feminine. They did very well. One boy wrote the feminine 
of nephew. In giving masculine forms Miss H. asked one boy to give the names of 
his masculine relatives, as his uncle. He gave a few, and another boy was called on 
to help him out. He gave what we all understood to be " mother-in-law." We all 
laughed heartily. The idea of little Georgie having a mother-in-law was amusing. 

Besides the practical acquaintance with the work of teaching and 
training in teaching gained through the system of apprenticeship — which 
is, of course, its primary object — it gives the faculty of the normal 
school fuller data for estimating the teaching ability of their students. 
The apprentice is visited by the faculty while engaged in his work and 
carefully observed as well as aided by suggestions. Moreover the 
teacher of each school in which he has served makes out a report in the 
following form : 



[State Xorrnal School at Worcester.] 

Report of the apprentice work of , grade , 

from to 



street school. Time, 



[Scale, 10; use no fractions.] 



Number of 
absences. 



Number of 
tardinesses. 



Power of 
control. 



Power of 
interesting. 



Skill in 
question- 
ing. 



Skill in explain- 
ing and illus- 
trating. 



Enthusi- 
asm. 



Bearing. 



1. What traits of excellence (if any 11 have been shown in teaching or management? 

2. What weakness or deficiency ? 

Signature 

I have before me a number of the blanks as they were actually idled 
out by the teachers of the Worcester schools. In one, the number of 
absences, is 2; another, 0; another, 0; number of tardinesses, 1 ; in all, 3. 
Power of control, in one, 8; another, 7; another, G. Power of interesting, 
in one, 7; another, 8; another, 7. Skill in questioning, in one, 7; in one, 
8; in one, G. Skill in explaining and illustrating, in one, 6; in one, 8; in 
one, 7. Enthusiasm, in all three, 7. Bearing, in one, 7; another, i); an- 
other, 5. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 81 

Iii addition to these reports, each teacher is expected U) make further 
statements about the apprentices under the head of general explanations 
and remarks. I have a number of them before me. They are remark- 
able' for their definite and specific character. 

As to the practical workings of the system, the evidence before me 
would seem to leave no doubt. The school board of the city heartily ap- 
prove of it, because of the benefits which indirectly accrue to the city 
schools because of the greater fitness of the apprentices to become 
teachers. In addition to this, Principal Russell writes me that after 3 
years* experience in teaching graduates are asked to state pretty fully 
how they regard the apprenticeship. He says that *• a few state frankly 
that it was not useful to them, because they could not command them- 
selves sufficiently to teach in the presence of an experienced person with 
the consciousness that they were observed and criticised. When the 
apprenticeship was first tried, a student was expected to serve only from 
2 to 6 weeks, and a small number who were in the school at this time ex- 
press doubt of its usefulness on account of its shortness. Both then 
and now. however, the testimony is overwhelmingly in favor of it," and 
that is not put too strongly, if I may judge from the replies which I 
have seen, which he assures me are a fair sample. 

The other feature of this school, of which I spoke, is its method of teach- 
ing psychology. Acting on a suggestion of President, then Professor, 
G. Stanley Hall, a plan of making the original observation of children 
a part of the regular course of study was worked out a number of years 
ago Avhich has ever since been carried out with great success. 

Principal Russell explains the method as follows : 

Soon after entering the school, students are made acquainted with this feature of 
our work, and very little effort is required to give them a new interest in children 
and their ways, partly, no doubt, from the novelty of the thing, hut more because 
the new comers quickly perceive in the school the presence of such an interest. They 
very soon feel the growing enthusiasm Avhich objective study is so apt to enkindle 
in youths' minds, and some of them show almost immediately the right apprehension 
of what is wanted and the sure test that will lead to success. Others, of course, 
lack this and never make first-rate observers. 

The first real task is to correct the prevailing notion that what is desired is the 
striking or remarkable sayings and doings of precocious children. It is difficult for 
beginners to understand that only what is common or habitual in ordinary children 
is of value. They can hardly believe at first that newspaper paragraphs about 
children are generally false, aud that even if true they would be of little use A 
second point for beginners is to refrain from all reflections and comments of their 
own. to report precisely what they observe, no more and no less, with the accuracy 
of a photograph. A third precaution has to be much insisted on, that of never 
allowing the child under observation to know or suspect that he is being observed. 
Another important thing is to record the observation at the earliest convenient mo- 
ment. 

New pupils are told in a general way in what realms or fields most of their ol. 
vations will lie; as. for example, the knowledge and ignorance displayed h\ children, 
their language and gestures, curiosity, shyness, vanity, lying, etc.; their likes and 
dislikes, attachments, aversions, fancies, caprices; their favorite stories, songs, and 
myths, whatever makes them laugh or cry; ideas of tin- sky, of death, etc.: their 

48110— No. 8 6 



82 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

abilities, as shown in drawing, building, planning, and tbe like; and above all, their 
plays and games, social and solitary. No limit is put to tbe scope of these observa- 
tions, and no question is raised as to their possible utility. * * * , 

The work of making these observations is not at all compulsory, but nearly every 
pupil engages in it from genuine interest; it is, indeed, the most nearly self-sustaining 
exercise in the school. A distinct gain in skill is noticed in a majority of students 
from term to term, and during the latter part of a term the proportion of interesting 
and valuable papers is greater than during the first part. 

The records as handed in are read by a teacher and classified provisionally under 
such rubrics as knowledge, reflection, imagination, conscience, feeling, play, etc. 
Such as are of special interest or significance, whether for matter or form, are placed 
for a few days where they can be read by the pupils, and they never fail to attract 
eager readers. 

At times some particular childish trait will come into prominence and be observed 
by many students simultaneously. Sometimes a question will come up as to whether 
such or such a thing is true of children generally, and there will be in response a 
great number of observations directed to that point. Occasionally a student will 
strike out in some new direction. For instance, one tried the effect of smiling 
pleasantly at every little child she passed in the street, and recorded the nature and 
number of responses she got — they were almost all smiles in return. The same per- 
son tried frowning in a similar way. During the past winter we have had an un- 
usual number of observations relating to lying, and a good many with reference to 
vanity. The peculiar shouts and cries of children, whether in play or in derision, 
have been reduced to musical notation; we have a large number of jnctures sponta- 
neously made by children ; also a small collection of playthings similarly produced. 

Students are furnished with blanks, printed upon half-sheets of note 
paper of five different tints, upon which to record their observations. 
White paper is used in recording observations which the students make 
themselves; pink for well-attested observations reported by others; green 
for mentioning whatever they read on the subj ect ; and chocolate for obser- 
vation s that extend continuously over a specified period of time. The 
printed headings embrace the folio wing items: The date; the observer's 
name, age, and post-office address; the name (or initials) of the child 
observed, its sex, nationality, and age in years and months; and the 
length of time between making the observation and recording it. Xo sort 
of pressure is exerted to induce students to make any specific number 
of records, but as a matter of fact they are found to average about 
two a week during the whole course of 2 years and a half. 

At my request Principal Russell has kindly sent me a number of the 
records of observations made by his students, a few of which I give 
below : * 

Name of child observed, Lucie K. ; sex, female ; nationalty, American ; age, 2 years, 
10 months; length of time between making the observation and recording it, 1 day. 

"Last night my mother said to Ella: ' You had better put away your playthings 
now; it is almost supper time.' Lucie said: 'No, May will,' and she went to work 
picking up her things and talking. 'I declare, I never saw anything so cute. I 
don't see who briuged this cup (her small scoop) in here; it belongs in the pantry. 
I got to put it in the bag where it belongs,' and she went and put it away. 'There, 
this chair belongs in the corner.' She pushed it as far in the corner as she could. 
'That music stool belongs up to that piano; this goes on it. so." She came to me and 



In this and the following records I omit the name and age of the observer. 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 83 

said: 'Do you kuow, somebody bringed my scoop in here, and I had to put it away? 
This floor is awful dirty ; I got to sweep it with my new broom.' I told her folks did 
not sweep at night, they waited until morning. She said: 'Yes, I guess I'll wait 
till morning, my brooin is awful tired.' I told her that her room looked very nice. 
She said: 'My house is very nice all over. There, my baby's crying, it's sick in its 
neck 'cause it went out Avithout its chanchery (handkerchief) on. 0, it's awful 
sick.' She then said it was time for her baby to go to bed. She carefully undressed 
her doll and asked me for one of Allen's (the baby's) nightdresses because her doll 
was so sick she must have a big one." 

Here is another : 

Initials of child observed, G. S. ; sex, male; nationality, American; age, 8 years; 
length of time between making the observation and recording it, 1 day. 

Gr. "Harry Custer goes here to school, now." 

I. "Does he ? Who is Harry Custer V 

Gr. "The cowboy." 

I. "What?*' 

G. ''The cowboy's boy." 

I. '-What is a cowboy ."' 

G. "A hunter." 

I. "Where did Harry Custer come from ?" 

G. "Out West. He used to live out West, but he boards here now — in the city." 

I. "What grade is he in in your school ?" 

G. "'The fourth — my brother's. He shot a boy up here and killed him, and the 
policeman couldn't catch him, and when the policeman ran down to his house his 
father came out aud was going to shoot him, so the policeman went away, and they 
don't dare to try and get him, for fear they'll get shot." 
• I. ''Who is Harry Custer's father?" 

G. "William Custer." 

I. "Aren't the teachers afraid to have such a boy in school?"' 

G. ' ' They don't dare to say anything for fear he'll shoot 'em. He carries a revolver, 
and my brother says that when the teacher is going to whip him and says 'Hold out 
your right hand,' he points his revolver at her and holds it there, so she don't dare to 
whip him." (His teacher says there is no such boy as Harry Custer in the school.) 

Here is another: 

Name of child observed, Florence; sex, female; nationality, American; age, 12 
years ; record made at the time of observation. 

•'Fourth of July, Florence came in and told me that she had been having so much 
fun. When asked what she had been doing, she said that she, with one or two 
others, had lighted firecrackers, and when they saw a fly they put this near it. 
Florence said, '0, it is lots of fun; the fly will be walking along, and the next thing 
he will be blown all to pieces, his head in one direction and his wings in another.'" 

Here is another: 

"Children as Suicides," is the title of an article in the Catholic World for Novem- 
ber, 1888. It is to be found on page 183, and it is written by Agnes Pepphir. 

And another: 

Initials of child observed, W. C'. ; sex, male ; nationality. Irish ; age, 7 years. Length 
of time between making the observation and recording it, 15 minutes. 

" W. said he liked his dog better than his kitten. 

"I asked him why, and he said. ' 0. because a dog can bark and do anything. Some 
of them can carry baskets. And you can make them follow you every place, and 
cats won't. And if you sell a dog you can get more money than if you sell a cat." 

"I asked him if he sold his dog what he would do with the money. He said" "Buy 
another dog.'" 



84 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

And another: 

Age of children observed, 5 raid 6 years; length of tinje between making the obser- 
vation and recording it, a week. 

The teacher placed a cylinder upon her desk and asked the children to make a 
picture of it. Several went to the blackboard and all of the children drew rectangles, 
sonic of which were very imperfect. This was their first lesson of this kind and the 
drawings were entirely spontaneous. 

Principal Russell says that the end in view in encouraging students 
to make these observations has been twofold : 

First, and chiefly, to give such exercise in the observation of children as is calcu- 
lated to bring the observer into close and sympathetic relations to them, to. awaken 
in those who are to become teachers a reverent interest in all the realities and mys- 
teries of childhood. 

Secondly, and incidentally, to accumulate a body of well-ascertained facts that 
may serve in future to enlarge and rectify our knowledge of children and so help to 
lay the foundation of a more adequate and pedagogically useful psychology of child- 
hood. 

That both of these ends are in the very highest degree important I 
think no one will question, and it seems to me equally evident that 
both of them are promoted by the study of children. Principal Russell 
says that his graduates say, after experience in teaching, that they find 
no feature of their preparatory work more directly beneficial, especially 
in dealing with exceptional children, than this training in the observa- 
tion of children. And it seems to me that no trained student of mind 
and the science of education will need the help of such testimony to 
convince him of its truth. Since teaching consists in dealing with 
mind, in putting it in such positions, surrounding it by such influences 
as to induce it so to act as to develop in this direction rather than in 
that, surely it is self-evident that the more we know of actual living 
minds, in all the richness and infinite variety that are the universal 
characteristics of reality, the better this can be done. I would be the 
last to deny that a careful study of books on psychology interpreted 
by as careful a study of the facts of his own experience may be 
very helpful to the teacher. But if he uses this knowledge merely as a 
starting point, as a thread by means of which to wind his way into the 
labyrinth of minds as they manifest themselves to him in everyday 
life and in history, literature, and art generally ; if he tries by means 
of it not merely to comprehend the mental processes of the Napoleons 
and Alexander Hamiltons and Thomas Jeifersons and Andrew Jack- 
sons and John Quincy Adamses of history; of those " doughty old 
mediaeval knights" who were ready to pronounce "a curse on those 
stupid letters'' because they thought "a life of toilsome and heroic 
action" altogether preferable to "the clerk's petty tricks of writing;" 
of the Chinaman, who finds his ideal in the past and looks upon all 
progress as a return to a state of excellence which has once existed — if, 
I say, he uses that knowledge of mind gained by a careful study of 
manuals of psychology as interpreted by the facts of his own experi- 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 85 

ence not only to explain the actions of men as they appear in history and 
to assist him in comprehending them, hut to explain the actions of the 

men and women and children with whom he comes in contact in everyday 
life, and to assist him in comprehending- them, his knowledge of mind will 
be as much more helpful as it is more vivid and accurate and wide. It 
may he said, perhaps, that this study of mind in history, however helpful 
it may be from the point of view of culture and general discipline, is of 
little use to the teacher. I can not admit that ; I know of no way in which 
the teacher can get a more vivid sense of the almost omnipotence of 
education in molding and transforming human beings than by the care- 
ful study of history. African and European, Turk and American, 
modern Chinaman and ancient Greek — what monuments are these con- 
trasts of the power of education ! The teacher who realizes such illus- 
trations of its power as history abounds in can hardly fail to put more 
heart into his work. "But, at least," it may be said, "the value of the 
study of mind in history can not be urged as a reason for encouraging 
normal-school students to study children." I think it can. I believe 
that most teachers who have based their instructions in psychology on 
a text-book will agree with me when I say that it is extremely difficult 
in such cases to give students the idea that the book is not to be the 

chief source of their knowledge of mind. The idea that their text- 

• 

books should be regarded as a series of suggestions, or better, as a 
series of hypothetical assertions to be accepted as true only on condi- 
tion that they find them true in their own experiences and in the ob- 
servation of the people with whom they come in contact, is, in the 
majority of cases, not impressed upon them with sufficient force to make 
it of any value. But where the study of children is a part of the regu- 
lar work in psychology, students are sure to get the impression that the 
subject of their study is mind, mind in themselves, mind in the people 
about them. And when the habit of supplementing their knowledge of 
mind as acquired by introspection, by observations of children, is 
formed, it will almost inevitably be extended to a study of mind in all 
its manifestations, so far as these manifestations come within the range 
of their observations. But while all knowledge of mind is helpful to 
the teacher, it will not be denied that the knowledge of the minds of 
children is especially useful, and that precisely this knowledge is es- 
pecially enlarged by the methods pursued at Worcester. His special 
opportunities for observing children and his special interest in them 
naturally incline the teacher who has been trained in such methods to 
make a special study of them. 

1 have already incidentally called attention to the fact that the 
methods pursued at Worcester tend to greatly increase the value of 
the usual course in psychology. In order to emphasize this fact. ;is 
well as to present somewhat fully the excellent methods used there in 
the systematic teaching of that subject, T will quote at length a descrip- 
tion of them furnished me by Principal RusselL It is as follows: 



86 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The teachers' method of instruction is both conversational and ex- 
pository; it is oral and familiar; connection with previous instruction 
is made by questions, or by some recapitulation, or reference, or by a 
fresh example of some mental process which pupils are to identify, or 
analyze, or classify, by means of knowledge already attained. 

The text-books in the hands of all the members of the class are the 
"Hand Book" (or else the "Outlines") of Sully, and a "Manual* on 
"The Cultivation of the Senses." Bain's "Mental Science" and Day's 
"Psychology" are to be had by all who desire to keep a copy for con- 
tinued use ; and several copies of Porter's " Elements" and of Hopkins's 
"Outline Study of Man" are accessible. We have also such books of 
reference as Carpenter's "Mental Physiology," Calderwood's "Relations 
of Mind and Brain," Lacld's "Elements," Taine's "Intelligence," Spen- 
cer's "Principles," McCosh on the "Emotions," Mandsley's "Body and 
Mind," and many others. No recitation from a text-book is expected, 
but pupils are advised to make themselves acquainted with special 
chapters or pages. The instructor sometimes reads to the class 
passages from German or French books, as those of Beneke, Waitz, 
Perez. 

Pupils are called upon to employ introspection for the purpose of 
getting a clear idea of the particular mental process or activity under 
consideration, that they may know it as it is in their own experience, or 
as it has been, so far as they can recall it by memory. 

But for a general knowledge of mind they are advised, on the one 
hand, to study the books that contain the observations and the views 
of scientific psychologists ; on the other hand, to observe the phenomena 
of mind as manifested in human beings about them. And they are 
directed particularly to the observing of the minds of children, because 
this field seems to lie best within the range of their ability, to be of 
great interest to them, and to have direct practical bearing on their 
occupation as teachers. 

Examples of the mental processes of children, their associations of 
ideas, their imagination, their reasoning, are asked for by the instructor, 
and are given in abundance by pupils, out of their own observations 
and from the supply that is coming in continually, like a perennial 
spring of Avater, in the "records" of observations made by the school at 
large. 

The "apprentices" are advised to take notes in the schools in which 
they are serving, of the working of children's minds, both in regard to 
learning and understanding in different branches of study, and in 
reference to temperament, behavior, and discipline. In their weekly 
interviews with the teacher of psychology , these apprentices discuss with 
him such cases as they bring to his notice, e. //., a boy who is deaf but 
would never admit that he was so, heard the apprentice say that she 
was deaf (as she was temporarily, on account of a cold), whereupon he 
confessed that he was himself deaf. A boy who had been unable to get 



THE FORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 87 

the correct answer to a question in arithmetic was found to have misread 
the question persistently, reading* the expression "sold it again for $40" 
as " sold it at a gain of $40." 

The pupils in psychology are not infrequently required at the begin- 
ning of a lesson to write for 5 or 10 minutes upon a topic that has 
been treated by the teacher. At longer intervals, the whole instruction 
period is occupied with a written examination. 

The time allowed to instruction in psychology (apart from the talks 
with the apprentice class) is three lessons a week for a school year, the 
lessons being of 25 minutes. 

In the instruction, the emphasis is laid upon a few fundamental facts 
and laws of the mind's activity. Metaphysics is not attempted. There 
is no expectation that the pupils will gain an exhaustive knowledge of 
the nature of the mind, nor is it thought that a logically complete 
scheme or system, if taught, can be held as such by the immature mind. 
What is hoped is that the average pupil will gain some practical work- 
ing knowledge of the principal activities of the mind, and of those con- 
ditions of mental activity to which methods of teaching should be con- 
formed. 

The second end aimed at in this study at Worcester — the accumula- 
tion of a body of well-ascertained facts for the purpose of enlarging and 
rectifying our knowledge of children and thus helping to lay the foun- 
dations of a more adequate and pedagogically useful psychology of 
childhood — Principal Eussell says is merely incidental to the first. As 
principal of a normal school, the primary object of which is the prep- 
aration of students for the work of teaching, he doubtless is right in so 
regarding it, but as an educator, having in view not the immediate 
future merely but results for all time, I very much doubt whether he is 
justified in regarding it as in any sense subordinate to the first. What 
I regard as the most important of.the practical questions of pedagogy, the 
determination of the reading-matter and the methods of teaching it most 
likely to develop in students a genuine appreciation of good literature, 
must be settled by just such observations and experiments as he is in- 
ducing his students to make. . It is a work which, in the nature of the 
case, will never be completed, but it will only approximate completeness 
through the combined labors of generation after generation of teachers 
who have received this kind of training. And this, of course, is only 
one example out of a thousand that might be selected to show the ped- 
agogic importance of such work. What is it we need to know in order 
to make successful teachers of children ? We need, it seems to me, to 
know three things: (1) What children are; (2) what they ought to be; 
(3) what methods we can use to make them grow in the right direction. 
Evidently, the only way we can learn what children are, is, not by an 
a priori projection on a reduced scale of the mind of an adult into 
the body of a child, gradually enlarging it to keep it in harmony with 
his growing body, but by a systematic, patient, persistent study of 



88 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

children, poring over tliem, so to speak, as we have been obliged to 
pore over all the books in the vast library of nature in order to wrest 
from them even a few of their secrets. President G. Stanley Hall well 
says that "the living, playing, learning child, whose soul heredity has 
freighted so richly from a past we know not how remote, on whose 
right development all good causes in* the world depend, embodies a 
truly elementary psychology. All the fundamental activities are found, 
and the play of each psychic process is so open, simple, interesting, that 
it is strange that psychology should be the last of the sciences to fall 
into line in the great Baconian change of base to which we owe nearly 
all the reforms, from Comenius down, which distinguish schools of 
to-day from those of the sixteenth century. It is a striking fact that 
nearly every great teacher in the history of education who has spoken 
words that have been heeded, has lived for years in the closest personal 
relations to children, and has had the sympathy and tact that gropes 
out, if it can not see closely, the laws of juvenile development and the 
lines of childish interests." The Baconian change of base! AVho that 
reflects upon the enormous development of the various branches of 
natural science as a result of it will undertake to adequately estimate 
the results that may come from making it in the study of children ? 

We have decided questions relating to methods in the same a priori 
scholastic way. "Moving bodies have a natural tendency to come to a 
stop," said the schoolmen. "Why?" " Because they do." "Some boys 
have a natural dislike of books and study," our sage teachers have been 
saying. "Why ! " "Because they don't like them." As a patient study 
of the facts has brought to light the truth that not the moving body but 
the conditions to which it was subject were responsible for its stopping, 
so it may be that this "natural disinclination to study" is not natural 
at all, but due entirely to the fact that we have not supplied the right 
conditions, that we have not brought the mind into contact with the 
kinds of facts fitted to arouse its interests. How much the systematic 
study of teachers in general might accomplish in this direction I think 
we shall feel that it will be difficult to overestimate when Ave reflect upon 
what has been done in an entirely unsystematic way by a few isolated 
workers. 

I think, therefore, that we may truly say that the successful intro- 
duction by the Worcester Normal School of the method of studying 
children as a part of the work in psychology marks an important era 
in the history of the training of teachers in this country. I venture 
to commend it to the careful consideration of those normal-school prin- 
cipals ayIio wish not only to give their students the best possible prep- 
aration for their work, but to train up a generation of teachers whose 
observations and experiments will constitute important contributions 
towards the solution of the most important questions relating to edu- 
cation. 

As to the comparative merits of the system of apprenticeship, and the 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 89 

system of teaching in a practice school under the supervision of a critic 
teacher, I do not feel like expressing an opinion. In a city where t lie 
schools are in the charge of excellent teachers — as they undoubtedly 
are at Worcester — it is likely that pupil teachers would get quite as 
much benefit from criticism under the former system as under the latter. 
And I incline to think that in such cases the public could more confi- 
dently rely on the combined judgment of the teachers under whom the 
apprentice had served, and the faculty of the normal school, than in the 
judgment of the latter alone. But in cities and smaller towns, where 
the schools are not of a high order of excellence, the apprenticeship 
system would be manifestly impracticable. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NORMAL-SCHOOL IDEA AS EMBODIED IN THE NORMAL 

SCHOOL AT ST. CLOUD. 

By President Thomas G. Gray., 

One can justly criticise only what one lias rightly understood. 

Fischer. 

It is impossible to define the work of an institution in any other 
manner than to reveal its conception of its problem and purpose. What 
was it set to do? What means does it employ to accomplish its end ! 

In the few pages following a brief answer is suggested to these two 
questions from the point of view ayMcIi may be said to represent the 
"normal-school idea" as it is embodied in this institution. 

The philosophy of method is the method of philosophy. For the latter 
is nothing more than the science of knowing and knowledge. The 
modality of spirit is always in the last analysis the central question of 
philosophy. Its answer must find its valid ground quite beyond the 
reach of doubt, otherwise all procedure from it will be halting and un- 
certain. This ground must be sought in the field of metaphysics. 
Here alone, in the domain of the science of knowledge itself, can we 
hope to find a starting point for method. The question is not one of 
psychology, for the latter science is, as all other sciences are, but data 
in the science of thought. 

This point of view, apparently so self-evident, is one most difficult to 
attain. The mind becomes so habituated to the external body of fact 
in the world that the ablest thinker finds it well-nigh impossible to 
realize for any length of time that the universe for man is the universe 
we know, the universe as given to us. What it is, if it be at all, or 
could be, as not known to us, we can form not the slightest conjecture. 
The knowing mind is quite as large a factor in knowledge as the thing- 
known. We speak of color and form, of species and genera, of truth 
and error, and quite forget that apart from the knowing mind these 
very words would cease to exist, with all for which they stand to us. 

There can be no doctrine of method that does not undertake to define 
the mode of knowledge. There is no such thing as method apart from 
thought. Genera and species have no existence in the vegetable and 
animal kingdom, and he who becomes a master in botany is not one 
who learns many individual facts from nature, but he who thinks into 
90 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL IDEA. 91 

unity, under his a priori conceptions, the wholly isolated and unrelated 
facts of the natural world. Nay, rather does the modality of knowledge 
lie wholly on the spirit side of sensation, not on the matter side. 

What is meant by the question, How does the mind know? There 
have been, from Plato down the line of history, many profound students 
of this problem. Some of the most powerful intellects of the race have 
wrought upon it. But only as individuals. In so far as their natural 
inclinations and surroundings led them to the consideration of what has 
always been regarded a very abstruse subject, they investigated the 
question for us and have brought us their results. These are weighty 
and voluminous and of most rare value. 

But it has remained for the present century to see society in its 
organic capacity set to itself this stupendous problem, and establish an 
institution whose purpose it is to work out a better solution than the 
world has hitherto known. This institution is the normal school. 

Begun in ignorance of its real mission, still too young to show any 
final results, it is nevertheless true that this is its purpose, and to this 
will it rise. It had to create its faculties, its literature, its atmosphere. 
It has been met at every stage with the conservatism of tradition and 
Pharisaism. The idea resident in the brain of Socrates, of Plato, of 
Jesus, of Kant, of Bacon, is perennial, nay, immortal; and the normal 
school is no more subject to dissolution than the conception of the 
modality of knowledge in the minds of these men. There has no new 
idea been given the race, except that society, the larger intelligent entity, 
has now its hold upon it, and the normal school is its- extermination. 
. Some would have us believe that the chair of pedagogy and the normal 
school are of diverse origin and purpose. Such are shallow observers 
of the meaning of history. These institutions represent but one idea — 
chronologically the normal school is the older. But each represents the 
attempt society is making to answer the same question. So long as 
institutions do not differ in purpose, their differences in means amount 
to nothing in the progress of history. 

Naturally enough the first attempts upon this problem sought the 
most empirical facts. The term method, Avhose meaning inspired the 
whole movement, was made to stand for an order of evolution or arrange- 
ment in the external body of knowledge. This, of necessity, developed 
into empirical processes, tricks with things, if thereby and therein the 
soul might be forced or surprised into the act and result of knowing. 
The body of truth to be taught from pulpit and press, from school desk 
and at home, was supposed to contain some magic secret of a true order 
of acquisition, which, when once discovered, would prove an adequate 
guide to the tyro in teaching, who, though a fool, might not err. This 
was the dream of Pestalozzi. He delares : "I believe that we must not 
dream of making progress in the instruction of the people as long as we 
have not found the forms of instruction which make of the teacher, at 
least as far as the completion of the elementary studies is concerned, 



92 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the simple mechanical instrument of a method which owes its results 
to the nature of its processes, and not to the ability of the one who 
uses it." 

This notion of " logical method," " order of independence," came to 
be a fetich, and dominated and still dominates, to a degree at least, 
the normal schools of America. 

The newer phase of growth appears in the recognition of the truth 
that method is an order of thought, not things — it is subjective, not ob- 
jective. The mind receives to itself as a self-determing entity, or force, 
the universe, and receives it under the limitations and modes of its own 
existence. The spirit, infinitely free, goes forth to its own realization, 
or to the realizing of itself. A house, a hat, a tree, a flower, is the ex- 
ternal realization of an idea, human or divine. All soul activity is self 
activity, and must be the projecting of the self into a world, a cosmos. 
The spirit can not be passive, inert. The very conception of force 
precludes this. We can not think of a passive force. If, then, the 
mind be active, be a force, and a self-determining force at that (a fact 
necessary to grant and to place beyond the reach of doubt as the first 
postulate of freedom), it can not, in the nature of the case, be passive. 
What then, the question returns, is the modality of spirit? This is the 
sphere of method, this is the significance of the term. We shall never 
find in the externalizations of ideas the modalities of their expression 
or acquisition. The science of botany, I would repeat, is not in flowers 
and stems, roots and leaves. It is in the thinking, knowing mind. The 
moment the mind passes from the isolated instances of experience in 
the forms of time and space to the conceptions of unity in a nature of 
things, the world becomes a reality in us, and we can not dissociate it 
from ourselves. 

If a normal school be true to its mission it must rise to a conception 
of its purpose and bend its energies to its accomplishment. The first 
question, therefore, to put to a normal school, or its confrere, the chair 
of pedagogy, is: "What system of thought or theory of knowledge do 
you teach?" It will not do to answer "Pestalozzianism," or "Froebel- 
ism," for neither of these men ever had anything to be called a theory 
of knowledge ; yet this is the only answer some of the foremost normal 
schools could give. The chairs of pedagogy are even further behind, 
for no one in this country has yet produced any considerable contribu- 
tion to the real problem. They seem to be blindly groping for some 
solid ground on which to stand. What they and the normal schools 
must have, and what they will yet attain, is a rational metaphysie, a 
science of science, a science of knowledge. 

It may be further postulated that no advance toward final ground of 
thought has ever been made from a reliance upon the body of knowl- 
edge itself. This is, of course, a mere truism, for knowledge is the re- 
sult of the knowing process, and therefore thv, inquiry must be pushed 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL IDEA. 93 

back into the sphere of the soul itself. This is where Plato and Jesus, 
Bacon, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel placed it, and each, speaking of Jesus 
merely as an exponent of the modality of knowledge, made some con- 
tribution to the great problem. Any other process must result in a 
mere rearrangement of the parts of the external or objective body of 
truth, and such is the sole source of the validity of all pedagogical pro- 
cesses based upon the Speucerian school of thinkers. To repeat, sense 
perception does not contain the content of the term science. We must 
look to the modes or forms of spirit. If a class is aided by a study of 
Sully's Psychology it is not because of, but in spite of, his guiding 
principles. Fortunately no student is ever dependent on his teacher 
for his a priori forms of knowledge; these are his by virtue of his being 
an intelligent spirit, and by means of, and because of, these he is able 
to take even from such a guide the elements of an experience and think 
them into unity in the forms of his own soul. This alone saves every 
one of us from mental chaos and madness. This suggests the explana- 
tion of the oft-noted fact that men in contact with the most diverse 
in experience yet attain to the stature of cultured, educated man- 
hood. 

This resume of methodology suggests a number of practical laws for 
the determination of the courses of study and methods of instruction 
which are to be employed in the training of teachers. Among them 
may be enumerated : 

(1) All the parts of knowledge are or must have been facts in con- 
sciousness. Pne element, therefore, in pedagogical preparation must be 
the conscious classification of the various facts in all the sciences and 
departments of learning as data in psychology. That is, a science of 
knowledge must be made and mastered by the would-be pedagogue. 
But this implies in the world of thought a task as herculean as that con- 
fronting the biologist in the Avorld of life — an infinity of individuals for 
classification. It is evident, therefore, that the elementary or typical 
forms of thought must be first determined. Just as in the natural 
world an oyster studied becomes the type of all its multiplied kind, so 
a type form may be found in the outgoings of the self-determining spirit. 
This must lead the student to Kant. To this problem Kant addressed 
his gigantic energies. 

As applied to the particular subject of instruction the principle com- 
pels the student to select the characteristic marks or conditioning facts 
of a subject, those facts without which the science would not be, and 
under which all details, the instances of an experience, must arrange 
themselves. This is a crucial test of the student, nor can any teacher 
without a firm footing in an ultimate theory of knowing make the least 
approach to any final results. "Not mental science and Latin, mental 
science and arithmetic, mental science and grammar, but mental science 
in Latin, mental science in arithmetic, mental science in grammar, and 



94 TRAINING 01 TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

all other forms of knowlege, — this must be attained as the view point 
of teaching. 

It is quite needless to add that the study of mental science, as com- 
monly conducted, is almost valueless as an aid to teaching - . Handled 
as if its data were ever doubtful and its conclusions vain imaginations,, 
it is looked upon by the student as a subject quite outside himself, 
without any real data, and when the text-book is put down his little 
packages of psychological truths (God save the mark!) are ticketed and 
labeled and laid carefully away in the archives of memory. Many 
a man declares that it never occurred to him, as a student, that the 
mind he was supposed to study was his own; that he was to observe 
a fact at first hand, and pursue the subject as he would any other 
science. 

(2) It will thus appear that the true order of studies for a course in 
pedagogical training must be the direct reverse of the academic course. 
The latter is the order to be followed by the student mind in acquisi- 
tion, the former is the rearrangement into a science of knowledge of 
the elements of learning already in possession. However this peda- 
gogical process be related in proximity of time, it must of necessity 
chronologically and logically follow the academic process. Could nor- 
mal schools obtain a student body with adequate academic prepara- 
tion, they could at once devote all of their energies to their real func- 
tion. But, as was said before, they must create their literature, their 
faculties, their student body. At present they can hope to show the 
world what the problem really is ; they can not yet present its complete 
solution. 

The course of study must, therefore, recognize as its conditioning law 
the above principle. The true order of subjects must be: (1) Those 
that help directly in the formation of a science of knowledge, chiefly 
metaphysics, psychology, and methodology, including the history of 
education ; that is, the education of history — history regarded as the 
record of the evolution of ideas, the psychology of the race. (2) Those 
that look toward intelligent skill in the means of education, as methods; 
that is, psychology applied to the various activities of the scholar and 
school, a conscious synthesis of the manifold details in subject, topic, 
recitation, and organization. This is the true art of education. (3) To 
the above must be added such subjects as will give the student at least 
a fair conception of the body of human knowledge as a whole. An 
effort must be made to fill out the academic conception of subjects; 
that is, to set a fact in the light of all knowledge. This work should 
be thrown back upon academic schools, colleges, academies, and high 
schools, as far as possible, but the normal school faculties must, at pres- 
ent, do more or less of it. It is evident that it should be done before 
inducting the students into the professional work. If a student must 
learn arithmetic and chemistry, as an academic student, let him be 
be taught, but do not debase the real work of forming a science of 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL IDEA. 95 

knowledge by making him believe he is getting a sort of magic 
power, some hocus-pocus by which he will be prepared to teach it. 
Call the work by its right name. After this work is done, and it is a 
sine qua non take up true pedagogical inquiry in the order above indi- 
cated, and then treat of the various subjects from a pedagogical point 
of view. 

(3) It is evident that the so-called elementary subjects, elementary 
because they contain the elements of human knowledge, must be the 
objective ground for all methodology. They form, under ordinary condi- 
tions, a sufficiently comprehensive subject-matter for the doctrine of 
method to cover. At any rate, no start can be made in the science of 
knowledge that does not first comprehend these subjects. Their con- 
sideration from the pedagogical, that is, the normal- school point of view, 
must come last in the course of study. The inversion of this obvious 
order has introduced confusion into normal-school work, and brought 
upon it the contempt of academic schools. 

(4) It is also evident that to the department of methodology a model 
school should be attached — a ground for the operation of experience. 
" Studies do give forth directions too jnuch at large, except they be 
bounded in by experience." 

(5) Since the normal school is to train teachers in the art of knowing 
and expressing knowledge, in the art of being, it must, in order to work 
intelligently, be in possession of the science of knowledge. This fact 
constitutes it a technical school of university grade, and the highest in 
a possible series of schools in a system of education, since it assumes 
to examine into the very grounds of all forms of knowledge, and must 
thus bring into review the purposes, processes, and results of all other 
schools. In a word, it is a school of philosophy. It is needless, surely, 
to interject the remark that this view would not make the normal school 
a Utopian institution, that it would not place it so far away as to make 
it of no value to the common-school system. The point of the question 
turns upon this inquiry: When a pupil enters a normal school what 
should be his purpose, and what are the means for his realizing it ! The 
normal schools ought and must be able to render some other than the 
usual answer of academic schools, viz, to make a better scholar, by 
increasing the sum total of knowledge and mental power. Not to make 
better scholars, though this, of course, must be an incidental blessing, 
but to make teachers. Not to make teachers without scholarship,' as an 
occasional lunatic charges upon the schools, but to make teachers out 
of scholars. 

The recognition of the normal school as one of the technical schools 
of university grade has been of slow growth. With all of Horace 
Mann's acumen, he apparently did not see that it has this as its true 
relation in a system of education. Massachusetts, without a State 
university, was not, in this respect, a fortunate soil in which to plant 
the normal school. But it must be evident to the most casual observer 



96 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



that a system of education lias the following necessary parts and rela- 
tions : 

Technical Schools, 






\ 1 


\ \ \ 












Primary. 


Intermediate. 


Sigh. 


College. 


-> 


> 


> 


>■ 



Academic Schools. 

To the child entering the primary school an open way through all the 
academic schools should appear 5 beyond these, should be offered the 
special school needed to convert the accumulated potential energy of 
an academic course into some form of actual energy needed by society 
in its organic life. While any technical school is open to a student 
having the requisite preparation to do its special work, it is plain that 
the student who has gone through the most extensive course of academic 
preparation will profit most in the technical course. This fact is already 
well solved in the schools of law and medicine and business. In these 
schools, when the student is once entered, the question of academic 
scholarship is never raised. The geographical location of any technical 
school can mislead no one as to its logical relation in a system of edu- 
cation. 

It must appear that it is highly illogical to place normal and high 
schools in the same category. They have an entirely diverse purpose. 
The normal school is not one of primary, secondary, or tertiary grade. 
It is a technical school. 

In the practical solution of the problem of training teachers the nor- 
mal school at St. Cloud admits to the lowest class those holding or 
capable of securing a second-grade county certificate. The reason of 
this is obvious. The State, through the county superintendent, declares 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL IDEA. 97 

the candidate competent to teach, and licenses him for a year. It 
[ would be absurd for the State to declare the same person unfitted to 
enter upon a course of training' for teaching in a school the State has 
established for that special purpose. If he is fit to teach before he 
comes to the normal school, he ought certainly to be fitted to begin to 
learn how to teach. 

The course of study recognizes the views set forth above. The 
academic work is placed as far as possible in the first two years, the 
pedagogical in the last two. Were public opinion but far enough de- 
veloped this philosophical arrangement would be the real one through- 
out. 

The common branches thus come after the academic work, and after 
general psychology and methods. This enables the pupil to at least 
undertake the construction of a science of knowledge. The history of 
education, regarded as an evolution of thought rather than a chronology 
of devices, is carried on in conjunction with this work. The practical 
lessons of experience, as set forth in school economy, are brought to 
the student as guides to his own conduct, while the whole course is 
closed with several months of actual daily teaching in the model school, 
under a superintendence whose chief business it is to interpret for the 
pupil teacher the philosophy of his work and confirm his skill in the 
use of means. This pupil teaching thus becomes the real teaching of 
trained teachers, under the skilled supervision of specialists. The 
pupil teacher is not a pupil in a class ; he is a teacher. He is not assigned 
to practice for 20 minutes, but teaches the entire school day, until the 
faculty is satisfied of his efficiency. 

It is evident that all supervisory criticism must be helpful and intel- 
ligible in proportion as it is the expression of a correct science of knowl- 
edge. The formation of every judgment, the smallest fact in knowing 
or feeling, has its true interpretation from this point alone. In a gen- 
eral way it may be said that the dominant principles of the guiding 
metaphysic of this institution are those derivable from the science of 
knowledge as contained in the writings of the men above named, though 
to formulate such a science would transcend the limits of this outline. 
4890— ]S T o. 8 7 



CHAPTER VII. 

CHAIRS OF PEDAGOGY. 

There are probably three reasons for the fact that the first institu- 
tions founded in this country for the training of teachers were for the 
teachers of the common schools: (1) There were no schools in which 
the branches taught in the common schools were taught in the thor- 
ough way in which teachers ought to know them; (2) there were very 
few schools where girls, whose aptitude for teaching primary- school 
children the New England educational reformers of half a century ago 
saw very clearly, could get even a good high- school education ; (3) these 
were the schools which European countries had provided for the train- 
ing of teachers. The organization and courses of study of European 
normal schools, particularly those of Germany, leave little doubt that 
the first reason decided the character of their institutions for the train- 
ing of teachers. 

If this is a correct account of the causes that led to the founding of 
normal schools in this country, it is easy to see why they did not in- 
volve, as a logical consequence in the minds of our educators, the estab- 
lishment of departments of pedagogy in our colleges and universities. 
If institutions had existed 50 years ago in which intending teachers of 
elementary schools could have received the thorough instruction in the 
branches they were preparing to teach, it is safe to say that normal 
schools would not have been founded. The founders of the first normal 
school in this country undoubtedly saw that the preparation to teach 
required not only an ample and accurate knowledge of the subjects to 
be taught, but a knowledge of the science and art of teaching. But 
circumstances required them to lay so much stress on the former ele- 
ment that it is not strange that the public generally regarded it as the 
entire business of the normal school to provide it, and that they them- 
selves came to look upon that as its chief function. 

Since then the chief business of normal schools was thought to be 
to provide instruction in the subjects which intending teachers of 
elementary schools were preparing to teach, and since institutions 
already existed for the thorough instruction of those preparing to teach 
in the higher grades of schools, the perception of the necessity for the 
establishment of departments of pedagogy in our colleges and universi- 
ties has not been general, even among educated men. If normal schools 
had been founded to embody the idea that a knowledge of pedagogy is 
98 



CHAIRS OF PEDAGOGY. 99 

of the first importance to the teacher, such departments would have 
been generally established long before this. And the fact that several 
of such departments have been established in the last 15 years we may 
regard as a distinct recognition of the fact that scholarship, however 
ample, is not all that is required of the teacher 5 that the history and 
science and art of education are matters which it is of the first impor- 
tance for him to know. 

From 1855 to 1873 the University of Iowa gave elementary normal in- 
struction. In 1873 this professional instruction was modified in form 
and was transformed into a department of pedagogy, the first perma- 
nent department of the kind ever established in an American college.* 
In 1879 a professorship of pedagogy was established in Michigan Uni- 
versity ; 2 years later another in the University of Wisconsin ; and 3 
years later, one in the University of North Carolina, and one in Johns 
Hopkins University. Since then similar departments have been organ- 
ized in Ottawa University, Kansas (1885); Indiana University, Cornell, 
New York, and Ohio University (1886), and the University of the City 
of New York (1887). Efforts are making to establish such departments 
in the University of Pennsylvania, the University of the Pacific, Ohio 
State University, and Yanderbilt University. Some institutions, as 
Columbia College, N. Y., which have no department of pedagogy, lay 
special stress on pedagogy in the department of philosophy. These are 
some of the facts which permit us to hope that a department of peda- 
gogy will soon be recognized as an essential feature of the best colleges 
and universities in the country. 

To give some idea of the kind of work attempted in these depart- 
ments, I will quote at length from an article in "Didactics in the State 
University of Iowa" in the March, 1881, number of Education. The 
article was written by Dr. S. N. Fellows, the occirpant of the chair of 
pedagogy in that institution. It is, of course, unnecessary to say that 
the work in these departments varies greatly in different institutions. 
I select the University of Iowa simply because the facts at my com- 
mand enable me to give a somewhat detailed account of it. It should 
be said, however, that the courses of study in the department in that 
institution were arranged primarily to meet the Avants of its graduates 
who filled the higher positions in the jirofession of teaching in the State, 
particularly superintendencies of schools. The question asked by the 
Iowa State University was : " What professional qualifications do they 
(the graduates spoken of above) need?" Dr. Fellows answered the 
question as follows: 

First. A superintendent needs a knowledge of the means and ends of education, 
and how to use the former so as to secure the latter. This is especially necessary in 
arranging a course of study, grading and classifying the school, assigning teachers 
to their respective positions, supplying all the necessary conveniences for work, and 
in all the management and control of the school. 



* A department of pedagogy was organized in Brown University in 1850, but was 
discontinued after 5 years. 



100 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Secondly. He should be able to guard parents and teachers against the baneful 
results of incompetent teaching. The opportunity afforded, in schoolrooms where 
there is no intelligent supervision, for sham and pretense is unequaled. The extent 
of incompetency will never be known, nor can the evil results in the characters and 
lives of the pupils be estimated. The superintendent should possess the ability to 
detect and disclose incompetency in any of its forms, and by wise counsel and 
influence encourage, inspire, correct, or secure the removal of teachers, as occasion 
may demand, and thus guard the interests and promote the welfare of all concerned. 

Thirdly. He should know how to economize force. The amount of wasted energy 
in school work is incalculable. Waste may arise from undirected and misdirected 
effort, too much time given to unimportant matters, a badly arranged course of 
study, lack of thoroughness, irregularity, want of plan and system, improper phys- 
ical conditions, lack of enthusiasm, and imperfect discipline. The superintendent 
should so understand the vital educational forces, their modes and laws of action, 
that he can overcome these and other forms of friction and waste, and obtain 
the best results with the least expenditure of energy. To meet these demands well 
he should possess an acquaintance with the order of development and laws of 
growth and action of the physical, mental, and moral powers; the relative im- 
portance and position of the several branches of study; the principles underlying 
methods so as to determine the relative value of diverse methods; the relation of 
physical conditions to health, study, and discipline; the fitness of competing text- 
books and all the appliances necessary in the practical work of the schoolroom. 
Another has said that to be properly furnished for the duties of a superintendent, 
one needs to j>ossess "an exhaustive acquaintance with tbe literature of education, 
filled at present with the fruits of intense activity of master minds, and the sagacity 
to actualize all its golden suggestions in the school. Such, in brief, are some of the 
professional qualifications which, added to the ripest scholarship, are demanded for 
this, perhaps the most important and responsible position in our public-school system. 

The nature, extent, relative position, and methods of instruction in didactics in 
this university have been determined, with the view of fitting as far as practicable, 
such of our alumni as engage in teaching for the work indicated above. 

• The following is a syllabus of our course of study, arranged more in its logical 
than in the chronological order pursued : 

COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN DIDACTICS. 

A. History of education. 

I. Writers: (1) Bacon, (2) Milton, (3) Locke, (4) Rousseau, (5) Spencer. 

II. Practical educators: (1) The Jesuits, (2) Ascham, (3) Sturm, (4) Raitc-h, (5) 
Jacotot, (6) Comenius, (7) Basedow, (8) Pestalozzi, (9) Froebel, (10) Willard, (11) 
Mann. 

B. National systems of education. 

I. The United States: (1) City systems, (2) State systems, (3) the relation of the 
Federal Government to education. 

II. Other nations : (1) England, (2) France, (3) Germany. 

C. Practical educational topics. 

(1) Illiteracy in the United States. (2) Relative rights of the State and the indi- 
vidual in regard to education. (3) Compulsory education. (4) The high-school 
question. (5) Industrial education. (6) Moral instruction in schools. (7) The nor- 
mal-school problem. (8) Higher education of women. (9) Coeducation. (10) The 
kindergarten. (11) Oral instruction versus text-books. (12) Gradation of schools. 
(13) Relation of psychology to didactics. (14) Waste labor iu education. (15) Ob- 
ject teaching, its purpose aud province. (16) Tenure of office of teachers. 



CHAIRS OF PEDAGOGY. 101 

D. School economy. 

I. School organization: (1) Principles, aims, modes; (2) nature of a graded school; 

(3) courses of study ; (4) reviews, nature, value, frequency; (5) examinations — kinds, 
frequency; (6) promotions— plans, frequency; (7) records and reports; (8) teachers' 
meetings; (9) criticisms— advantages, limitations, tendencies, aud dangers in the 
graded system. 

II. School management: (1) Employments : (a) Study, (6) recitation, (c) recrea- 
tion. (2) Government: (a) Objects, (6) forces, (c) principles, (d) methods. (3) Phys- 
ical conditions: (a) Sites, (6) ventilation, (c) light, (d) temperature, (e) exercise. 

(4) Moral culture: (a) Conditions, (6) limitations, (c) objects, (d) methods. 

III. School supervision: (1) Ends, value, and modes of supervision. (2) The 
superintendent: (a) His qualifications, (&) duties, (c)his relations to teachers, pupils, 
parents ; discipline, course of study. 

E. Principles of education. 

I. General statement: (1) The educator learns from the study of the child what 
and how to teach him. (2) It is what the child does that educates him. 

II. The being to be educated: (1) Ends of education: (a) To develop all the fac- 
ulties of the child; (b) to develop them in harmony with one another; (c) to develop 
them with due regard to (a) their proper order, (b) relative importance, aud (c) 
future employment. (2) Characteristics of faculties: (a) As developed in mature 
mind; (6) as undeveloped germs in child's mind. (3) Development of faculties: 

(a) Order of development ; (&) periods of development; (c) laws of growth and action. 
(4) The faculties classified: (a) For purpose of culture; (a 1 ) As to simultaneous cul- 
tivation; (b) as to their mutual relations; (c) with regard to branches taught ; (d) 
with regard to methods of teaching. (5) Motives: (a) Nature and use of motives; 

(b) motives proper and improper; (c) motives adapted to each period of develop- 
ment. (6) Habits: (a) Nature and strength of habit; (6) kinds — physical, intellec- 
tual, moral; (c) forms — active, passive; (d) conditions and laws of growth ; (e) habits 
to be formed in relation to each class of faculties. 

III. Matter for exercise of learner's powers : (1) The branches taught : (a) The pur- 
pose and province of each; (&) their distinctive characteristics; (c) the order of 
their study ; (d) their adaptation to purposes of culture ; (e) their relative importance ; 
(/) demand for increase of number. 

IV. Methods of instruction : (1) Importance and utility of method. (2) Principles 
of method. (3) Tests of methods. (4) Principles of method applied: (a) To each 
class of faculties; (6) to periods of development; (c) to branches taught. 

V. The educator: (1) His functions : (a) To provide suitable materials; (6) to stim- 
ulate pupil's activity ; (c) to direct and supervise pupil's work ; (d) to guide him to 
the formation of right habits. (2) Qualifications: (a) Personal; (&) scholastic; (c) 
professional. (3) Motives. (4) Responsibilities. 

In this institution didactics is pursued during the senior collegiate year as an elect- 
ive study. 

First. It is a senior study. The knowledge acquired in preceding years con- 
tributes to the work in didactics. The collegiate seniors have a discipline and 
culture that enable them to grasp the principles and philosophy of education with 
comparative ease. As a historical fact, a large proportion of our own classes have 
had an experience of at least a year or two in teaching. This being the lust year of 
study before entering permanently upon their chosen life work, they eagerly seize 
upon every suggestion that will be of practical use in the schoolroom. Besides. 
they are at the same time pursuing, the study of psychology, logic, and moral phi- 
losophy, branches related so closely to didactics as to greatly assist in its study. 

Secondly. It is an elective study. Only such students as intend to teach are ad- 
mitted into the class. It would be a serious embarrassment if those desiring only 



102 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

general culture should be admitted. As a result of this provision it requires but 
little effort to maintain a spirit of zeal and earnest work. 

Thirdly. Didactics extends as a daily exercise through the entire school year, and 
includes about 175 lectures, recitations, and exercises. 

The methods of instruction employed are : 

First. Recitations from approved text-books, with familiar oral lectures and dis- 
cussions, in which the members of the class participate. 

Second. Lectures by the professor and other members of the faculty. 

Third. Wide and careful reading. 

Under the first method, including the lectures of the professor in charge, all the 
subjects are considered that are enumerated in the course of study under the two last 
general divisions, viz: D, School economy; and E, Principles of education. 

About 100 lectures and recitations are devoted to these topics. 

Theredias recently been inaugurated a brief course of lectures by the president of 
the university and professors of the collegiate department, upon the subjects or 
branches of instruction pertaining to their respective chairs. The importance, 
relative i>ositions, distinctive characteristics, and ends aimed at in teaching each 
branch in public schools are discussed in these lectures. 

The ends secured by these lectures are : 

(1) A more complete recognition by the university of the need and value of in- 
struction in didactics. 

(2) It unites the university more closely with the public schools of the State. 

(3) The university becomes a more important factor in State education. 

(4) The students in didactics receive the benefit of the experience and observation 
of the collegiate faculty. 

Simultaneous with the above instruction in lectures and recitations, and occupying 
from one to two days of each week, the class is engaged in careful reading under the 
direction and supervision of the professors. The subjects thus considered are em- 
braced in the first three general divisions of the course of study, viz: A. History of 
education ; B, National systems of education ; and C, Practical educational topics. 

To illustrate the method pursued we give in detail the directions and references 
upon one of the subjects assigned. 

ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Questions to guide in reading. 

1. Does illiteracy exist ? 

2. Where does it exist? (a) Among colored or white population? (&) Among 
native or foreign population ? (c) In manufacturing or agricultural districts? (d) 
In what States? 

3. To what extent in each? 

4. Is the ratio of illiteracy to population increasing or diminishing? 

5. Relation of illiteracy to labor. 

6. Relation of illiteracy to crime. 

7. Relation of illiteracy to pauperism. 

8. Relation of illiteracy to insanity. 

9. Causes of illiteracy. 

References. 

1. Cyclopedia of Education. 

2. Census reports, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870. 

3. Reports of Commissioner of Education for 1870, 1871, 1872, 1877. 

4. Report of Massachusetts Board of Education, 1860. 

5. Report of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Illinois, 1871-72. 



CHAIRS OF PEDAGOGY. 103 

Not only the few hundreds of volumes in the teacher's library but the whole uni- 
versity library is laid under contribution, and by means of the copious indexes pro- 
vided, students can pursue their investigations beyond the references given. * * * 
The members of the class read with notebooks and pencils in hand, and the recitation 
hour of one day in each week is occupied in hearing their reports of progress made, 
with discussions thereon by the class, and the results are corrected and supplemented 
by the professor whenever there is need of it. It will be perceived that the above 
plan of reading is systematic in. method, definite in aim, and economizes the time of 
the student.* 

* For a full statement of the work done in the department of pedagogy in Michigan 
University see appendix to Professor Payne's " Contributions to the Science of Edu- 
cation." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE NEW YORK COLLEGE FOR THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS. 

The New York College for the Training of Teachers was developed 
out of an association founded in 1884, which was known as the Industrial 
Education Association, and is the creation of its first president, Dr. 
Butler. This association was organized for two purposes: (1) To cre- 
ate a public interest in manual training as an integral part of general 
education and a public belief in its value ; and (2) a distinctly educa- 
tional purpose — to provide teachers of manual training wherever they 
might be desired. During the first year of its existence it sent out a 
circular announcing that it proposed to distribute writings and docu- 
ments explanatory of the theories of manual training and of the prac- 
tical methods of incorporatiug it into the present school system as an 
integral part of a common- school education, and to send persons com- 
petent to lecture upon these subjects, and also to send out teachers to 
show how manual training might be introduced into existing schools, 
or if necessary, establish independent schools for manual training, and 
to work in schools wherever needed throughout the country. 

But the association soon found itself confronted with a very serious 
difficulty in attempting the purely educational part of its work, and that 
was the lack of trained teachers. When its doctrines were accepted and 
competent teachers were asked for to put them into practice, it fouud 
itself unable to supply them. To overcome this difficulty it resolved to 
organize a college for the training of teachers. 

The question before the association as they first conceived it was, 
How to train teachers of manual training? But Dr. Mcholas Murray 
Butler, who was president of the association, at once saw that to train 
teachers of manual training only was not to train teachers but trades- 
men; that "the graduates of such a college could be artisans but not 
artists."* But it was one of the cardinal principles of the association 
"that the complete development of all the faculties can be reached oidv 
through a system of education which combines the training found in the 
usual course of study with the elements of manual training." It stated 
definitely that its aim was not the teaching of trades, but the develop- 
ment of all the faculties ; that " manual training, to have its fullest value, 
must be an integral part of general education." t 



*See p. 10 of his annual report, made to the hoard of trustees May 4. 1888. 
tSee "Principles and Outline of Work of the Industrial Education Association/' 
puhlished in Decemher, 1886. 
104 



NEW YORK COLLEGE FOR TRAINING TEACHERS. 105 

Dr. Butler saw that if these principles were to be made the basis of 
intelligent action, it would be necessary to train teachers of manual 
training who should be qualified to teach the other class subjects. For 
any subject taught by a special teacher is not regarded as an essential 
part of the course of study. The very fact that the regular teacher has 
not received that kind of training creates an impression upon parents 
and pupils alike that it is in the nature of an accomplishment, and can, 
therefore, be dispensed with without serious loss; but to create that 
impression of manual training would be fatal to tne objects for the 
accomplishment of which the association existed. 

The association accordingly restated their question. Instead of ask- 
ing how they could train teachers of manual training, their inquiry was 
how they could train teachers who would know how to teach manual 
training, and Dr. Butler proposed and was authorized to organize a 
college for the training of teachers for the purpose of giving a practical 
answer to it. With this object in view, the college was founded in Sep- 
tember, 1887. 

In addition to the prominence given to manual training, this institu- 
tion has aimed from the start to do a work undertaken by no other in- 
stitution in this country, and for that matter by no other institution in 
the world with the exception of the Paedagogium, at Vienna, and the 
Higher Normal School, near Paris. As its name indicates, it aims to 
be not a normal school, but a college for the training of teachers, an in- 
stitution to which graduates of normal schools and colleges may go for 
their purely professional training, as intending doctors and lawyers go 
to schools of medicine and law. In his annual report, made May 4, 1888, 
Dr. Butler said : 

It [the college] is not a normal school and is not intended to he such. * * * 
They [.the normal schools of the country] are academies or high schools with a slight 
infusion of pedagogic instruction. They certainly are not to the profession they rep- 
resent what the law school, the medical school, and the theological seminary are to 
their respective professions. Col. Francis W. Parker recently wrote : "Circumstances 
have made them [the normal schools] at the hest hut half measures for the training of 
teachers. State normal schools are excellent high schools and a little more. * * * 
The need of the hour is the establishment of purely professional training schools — 
schools that would take rank with the hest law and medical schools." It was to 
supply this need, to establish a purely professional training school for teachers, a 
school whose course of study should embody the theory that manual training should 
be a part of every school curriculum, and the ability to give instruction in it and to 
understand it as a part of the teacher's equipment, that the college for the training of 
teachers was founded. * 

The theory upon which the work of this institution is based is that 
the u slight infusion of pedagogic instruction" given in the best normal 
schools and in those colleges which have departments of pedagogy no 
more affords sufficient preparation to the teacher than does the instruc- 
tion in physiology in the same institutions to the intending doctor; 



*See p. 9 of Circular of Information of 1889-90, issued by the college. 



106 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

that as the general knowledge of physiology which can be obtained 
in our best colleges needs to be supplemented by a careful, detailed 
study of the human body, of its conditions in health and disease, of the 
treatment proper to it in its normal and abnormal conditions, and of 
actual work in the hospital under competent supervision, so that gen- 
eral knowledge of pedagogy and the human mind and the history of 
education which can be obtained in our best normal schools and in the 
few colleges which have departments of pedagogy needs to be supple- 
mented by a broader, deeper, more detailed study of pedagogy and the 
human mind, by a wider and more accurate study of the history of 
education, and of educators, and of educational ideas, and of the insti- 
tutions in which they have been embodied, and by a careful survey and 
comparison of contemporary educational systems in Europe and this 
country, and by enough actual work in teaching under competent 
supervision to make it of real value as an experience, and a genuine 
test of teaching ability. We have been talking in this country for a 
long time about the supreme importance of education. We have begun 
to realize at last that if education is a matter of supreme importance, 
then the preparation of the educator must be of equal importance; 
that it can not be of vital importance to do a difficult work well with- 
out being of vital importance to prepare those avIio are to undertake it 
in the best and completest manner possible. This indisputable — nay, 
more than that — this self-evident truth, has been a mere idea, a soul 
without a body, until the New York College for the Training of Teach- 
ers was founded. This institution was the first attempt in this country 
to give practical recognition to the fact that the training of the teacher 
is at least as important as the training of the lawyer or doctor; that the 
men and women who are to undertake the grave and responsible tasks 
of formulating courses of study, and giving advice as to. courses of 
reading, and of supplying the conditions of healthy, symmetrical 
growth • in brief, that the men and women who are to determine to a 
large extent the environment by which the child is to be surrounded in 
the most critical period of his existence, and which will be the most 
potent factor in determining his destiny, that these men and women 
should have the benefit of all the experience and reflection of the 
teachers and educators of the race in attempting what sober truth 
obliges one to call the most important work in the world. 

But though these ideas shaped the organization and work of the 
college from the first, it was unable, through lack of sufficient funds, to 
obtain a proper charter from the board of regents of the University of 
the State of New York until January 12, 1889. On that date the charter 
was issued in response to an application from the promoters of the col- 
lege stating that they wished to establish and conduct a purely profes- 
sional school for the training of teachers; " that the elements of a sec- 
ondary education are not to be taught at the proposed college, but are 
to be required of candidates for admission,* that the object of the col- 



NEW YORK COLLEGE EOK TRAINING TEACHERS. 107 

lege will be to give instruction in the history, philosophy, and science 
of education, in psychology, in the science and art of teaching, and the 
methods of teaching the various subjects included under that head; 
that a school of practice and observation will be maintained in connec- 
tion with the college, and that a course of instruction and practice of 
not Jess than 2 years is to be organized, the completion of which to the 
satisfaction of the trustees and faculty of the said college may entitle 
the candidate to the degree of bachelor of pedagogy." 

The charter authorized the trustees of the college " to grant and con- 
fer the degree of bachelor of pedagogy upon any person of the age of 
20 years and of good moral character upon the recommendation of the 
faculty of said college, setting forth that the candidate for the said 
degree has completed the course of study in the said college to the sat- 
isfaction of the faculty, and to confer the further degrees of master of 
pedagogy and doctor of pedagogy upon such conditions as to them may 
seem proper." 

From what I have already said it will be evident that manual train- 
ing constitutes an important part of the course of study, although this 
is merely a concession to temporary exigencies. Where a sufficient 
number of institutions exist to give candidates an opportunity co pre- 
pare themselves in this department it will be required as one of the 
elements of a secondary education. 

There appear to be two more exceptions to the purely professional 
work of the college. Two periods a week are devoted to instruction in 
general history during the senior year. The theory upon which this 
work is based is " that right historical study is an aid to culture, breadth 
of view, and sympathy, and that it gives discipline in reasoning of the 
practical kind most needed in the affairs of life; that it trains the imag- 
ination, and that it is a special preparation for the worthy handling of 
the great questions relating to man and society. 7 ' The other apparent 
exception is in the department of natural science. The object of instruc- 
tion in that department is to prepare the student to give experimental 
lessons in elementary science to pupils in primary and grammar grades. 
A course of experiments is pursued for the purpose of developing an 
explanation of such simple phenomena as come under the daily observa- 
tion of children and are most likely to excite their interest. The stu- 
dents are taught to make their own illustrative apparatus. No exam- 
ination in science is required for admission to the college, as it is found 
to be better that students should do their reading in science in connec- 
tion with their experimental work. 

The elements of a secondary education which are to be required of 
candidates for admission, include arithmetic, plain geometry, United 
States history, geography, and English, to which requirements it is in 
contemplation to add free-hand drawing.* 

In the course of study that leads to the degree of bachelor of pedagogy 
three periods a week are given to instruction in psychology throughout 



* Both sexes are admitted. 



108 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the junior year, two to the science of education during the whole of the 
junior year and three throughout the senior year, two to methods of 
teaching throughout the junior year and three throughout the senior 
year, three to the theory and practice of the kindergarten throughout 
the junior year, six to natural science during the junior year, and five 
to practice teaching throughout the senior year.* 

I am glad to be able to say that in the department of psychology* the 
greatest stress is laid on the study of children. In an appendix to this 
chapter will be found a copy of a blank with which each student is 
furnished, and also of the directions which they receive for their guid- 
ance in that work. 

We have seen that candidates for a degree are instructed in the 
theory and practice of the kindergarten three periods weekly during 
the junior year. In this course an outline of the kindergarten system 
and its philosophy are given by means of lectures, and students receive 
opportunity for observation and practice with children in the kinder- 
garten sufficient to show how the theory is carried into practice. This 
course is not intended to train practical kindergartners, but to enable 
students to appreciate kindergarten work and to see its relation to all 
the later education of the child. 

For those who wish to become practical kindergartners, two courses, an 
elementary and advanced, are provided. The elementary occupies one 
year, and is complete in itself. Besides daily observation and practice 
in the kindergarten this course includes four lectures weekly. The sub- 
jects studied are the theory of Froebel's system, the mother play and 
nursery songs, the gifts and occupations, elementary crystallography, 
clay modeling, color, elementary botany, story telling, and vocal music, 
including the adaptation of the tonic sol-fa system to the kindergarten. 
A brief course in form study and drawing is also pursued. In addition, 
students taking the special kindergarten courses are required to attend 
the lectures in psychology with the candidates for the degree of bachelor 
of pedagogy, and also the three exercises weekly in physical training 
with the same students. 

The advanced course for kindergartners occupies two years, and is 
occupied with the same subjects, treating them more fully and in greater 
detail. Students taking that course are also required to attend the 
lectures given to the senior class on the science of education. Certifi- 
cates are given to students satisfactorily completing these courses. 

Students who are not candidates for either of these certificates or for 
the degree of bachelor of pedagogy may take such special courses as 
they elect, but in order to obtain a certificate of proficiency in their 
chosen department they must take the course in the history and insti- 
tutes of education. 

We have seen that candidates for the degree of bachelor of peda- 



* This is by no means a complete synopsis of studies. I have omitted, for instance, 
the courses of study in manual training. 



NEW YORK COLLEGE FOR TRAINING TEACHERS. 109 

gogy spend 5 hours a week throughout the senior year in practice teach- 
ing. But besides affording to students this opportunity the model school 
is intended to serve two other important purposes: (1) "To demonstrate 
that manual training can be introduced into schools of primary and 
grammar grade, both with benefit to the pupils and without interrupting 
their progress in other studies; (2) to afford opportunity to those in- 
tending to pursue the professional course at the college to receive 
thorough preparation for entrance." 

The school consists of four grades : The kindergarten, primary, gram- 
mar, and high school, and the course of study is intended to occupy 
about 12 years — 1 in the kindergarten, 4 in the primary, 4 in the gram- 
mar, and 3 in the high school. 

This very meager account is sufficient, I think, to vindicate the state- 
ment which I made in the beginning, that in its conception this insti- 
tution occupies a unique position among the institutions of this country. 
It is differentiated from all the other institutions in the country that 
undertake the training of teachers by its attempt to embody two prin- 
ciples : (1) The principle which I have already stated at length, that the 
vital importance of education makes the preparation of the teacher of 
vital importance, and that therefore his professional training should at 
least equal in thoroughness that given to the candidates for any other 
profession; and (2), that manual training should form an integral part 
of general education, and that every thoroughly equipped teacher should 
be qualified to teach it. The development of the first principle to its 
logical consequences will, I suspect, make it necessary to state it in a 
more radical and aggressive form. The thorough study of the science 
and philosophy of education is sure to make unmistakably clear the fact 
that double duty is required of the teacher who would thoroughly pre- 
pare himself for his work. When the law and medical students have 
finished their general education they are at once ready to enter a pro- 
fessional school. Not so with the intending teacher. When he has 
finished his general education he should spend 2 or 3 years in the thorough 
study of some one or more subjects before he enters a professional school, 
and that as a part of his preparation as a teacher. The more profoundly 
and thoroughly the science of education is studied the more evident it 
will be that a part of a teacher's equipment is thorough scholarship in 
some department or other. Thus only will lie get that " magnificence 
of mind" which will enable him " to be a spectator of all time and exist- 
ence ; " that culture, in a word, the possession of which is certainly one 
condition of the highest success in teaching, to say nothing of the schol- 
arship which is indispensably necessary to,success in the more responsible 
positions. When this determines the conditions of admission to the 
New York College for the Training of Teachers, and when its courses 
of study are arranged accordingly, the first principle which underlies 
its organization and work will require restatement somewhat as fol- 
lows : As the work of the teacher has more direct and important bear- 



110 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

ings upon the well-being of society than that of any other profession, 
his special professional training should be more complete and thorough 
than that required for any other profession. When that principle 
determines the work of the college throughout, a diploma from some 
college in good standing will be required as a condition of admission, 
and students will be strongly urged to spend 2 or 3 years in the special 
study of some 'one or more subjects before taking up their purely pro- 
fessional studies, and its course of study will be correspondingly difficult.* 
This is in no sense intended as a criticism upon the organization and 
work of the New York College for the Training of Teachers. "Such a 
being as man, who hopes to accomplish anything in such a world as the 
world we live in," must constantly take into account the immense differ- 
ence between the ideal best and the practical best. 1 have no doubt that 
there was a pathetic contrast between the ideal normal school as it existed 
in the minds of Horace Mann and Cyrus Peirce, and the poor reality which 
began to exist at Lexington in 1839, but the Lexington Normal School has 
developed into something much more like the ideal of its original founders 
in this country. I have no hesitation in saying that I regard the organ- 
ization of the New York College for the Training of Teachers as one 
of the most important steps which have ever been taken in this coun- 
try or in the world in educational matters. Not merely or, indeed, 
chiefly, for what it is, but for the ideal which it cherishes and towards 
which we may hope it will grow as fast as public opinion permits. The 
thing for the friends of education to do is not to criticise this or that 
detail, especially when the defects grow out of necessary compromises 
with stubborn facts. It would be absurd, for instance, to say that a col- 
lege for the training of teachers should only admit college graduates, when 
public opinion does not demand such training of college graduates, and 
when so few of them have any realization that they need anything of 
the kind. When such educational centers as Yale and Harvard and 
Princeton make absolutely no provision for instruction in pedagogy, 
it is absurd to insist that the projectors of an institution which aims to 
be a purely professional training school for teachers should admit none 
but graduates from colleges in good standing, or those who can give evi- 
dence of possessing an equal amount of culture. When men generally 
appreciate that it is vastly more important to get a good teacher for 
their children — a man whose knowledge of mind and the science of edu- 
cation will enable him to treat mind in a thoroughly rational and intel- 
ligent way — than it is to get a good doctor — a man to look after their 
physical well-being ; or a good lawyer — -a man to look after the property 
they are to inherit — then the training demanded of the profession, and 
the emoluments offered to it, will make possible the realization of the 
ideal that underlies the New York College for the Training of Teachers. 



*It gives me great jdeasure to say that a letter from Dr. Butler assures me that 
the views just stated are shared by the faculty and trustees of the institution, and 
that they look forward to doing just what I propose to raise the standand of their 
work. 



NEW YORK COLLEGE FOR TRAINING TEACHERS. HI 

I have no space in which to adequately discuss the other distinctive 
principle that underlies the organization of this institution — the value 
of manual training as an integral part of general education. This only 
I will take time to say : Every friend of education, whatever his opinions 
on this subject, must rejoice to see the question put to the test of actual 
experiment. If the Xew York College for the Training of Teachers 
can make good its contention; if by its model school it can u demon- 
strate that manual training can he introduced into schools of primary 
and grammar grade, both with benefit to the pupils and without inter- 
rupting their progress in other studies," then I am sure that educators 
throughout the world will say: Let manual training be made an inte- 
gral part of general education. 

COPY OF A BLANK FURNISHED STUDENTS FOR RECORDING THEIR 

OBSERVATIONS OF CHILDREN. 

New York College for the Training of Teachers, Department of 

Psychology. 

study of children. 

Source: Original, reading, hearsay. (Cross out two.) 

Subject : principle involved . 

Observer : Xame , age , address . 



Child: Xame , age ; nationality ; sex ; heredity, etc. . 

Date: Observation— ; record . 

COPY OF DIRECTIONS. CAUTIONS, ETC. 

A. Cautions. 

* 

I. Do not seek the remarkable sayings and doings of precocious children; seek what 

is common and habitual. 

II. Keport only the observations without comments or reflections. 

III. Never allow a child to know that he is observed. 

IV. Avoid drawing conclusions (even in your own mind) from too few data. Dar- 

win observed worms many years before he dared to write about them. 

B. Things to be observed. 

I. Knowledge. 

a. The development of the several senses : Which develops first ? Which most 

rapidly ? 

b. Learning to talk. 

1. How young? 

2. What words first ? 

3. How many words in a given time ? 

c. How do children gain knowledge ? 

1. When examining a hew object, what quality first strikes them — form, 

color, taste, use? » 

2. When asking questions, what kind of questions do they ask? 

d. How clear are the mental pictures which they form? 

e. A child's curiosity. 

1. How limited ? 

2. How satisfied ? 

3. Differences in children in the degree of curiosity? 
/. In what line is the greatest ignorance displayed? 



112 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

I. Knowledge — Continued. 

g. The effect of parentage and nationality on the extent and direction of a 

child's knowledge. 
h. How do children gain ideas of beauty, of personal rights, of moral law I 
i. Where do they get the idea " I am I?' 

j. Study the capabilities of children as shown in sewing, drawing, building, 
planning, etc. 

II. Attention. 

a. How can you gain a child's attention ? How keep it ? 

b. How cultivate attention? 

c. Under what circumstances have you observed long-continued concentra- 

tion? 

III. Imagination. 

a. Is imagination natural to children ? 

b. Does the power increase with age f 

c. Note examples of lying (real or apparent) resulting from imagination. 

d. Note the results of reading "Arabian Nights," etc. 

e. Study children's ideas of the sky, of death, of God, and spiritual things. 

IV. Reason. 

a. How soon do children begin to reason? 

b. Is there any difference of power between boys and girls ? 

c. Seek examples of the reasoning power of children ? 

V. Habit, 

a. How soon do children begin to form habits ? 

b. Note the formation of habits. 

1. What are formed with ease? 

2. What are formed with difficulty ? 

c. How are habits formed ? 

d. How are habits broken ? 

VI. Memory. 

a. What kind of memory is most found in children? 

b. When do they exhibit striking differences ? 

c. What examples of long memory ? 

d. What instances of logical memory; of recognition without recollection? 

VII. Feeling. 

a. Likes and dislikes. 

1. Things. 

(a) Amusements, plays, and games— social and solitary. 
(&) Favorite stories, songs, and myths. 

(c) Animals, flowers, etc. 

(d) Plants. 

2. Persons. 

(a) Attachments and aversions. 

(&) Shyness, self-consciousness, pride, vanity, fear, anger. 

VIII. Conscience. 

a. Is it innate ? 

b. How soon are there any signs of conscience ? 

c. Examples of confession of wrongdoing brought about by conscience alone. 

IX. Wills. 

a. Do young children have; strong wills ? 

b. When should obedience begin to be required ? How ? 

X. Ways of dealing with children. 

a. When naughty. 

b. When afraid. 

c. When shy. 

d. When self-conscious. 



NEW YORK COLLEGE FOR TRAINING TEACHERS. 113 

X. Ways of dealing with children — Continued. 

e. When injured. 
/. When angry. 

XI. Progress of children. 

a. In the acquisition of knowledge. 

1. Through the senses. 

2. Through memory. 

b. In overcoming faults. 

c. In the development of will. 

d. Compare the progress of children with the progress of brutes, e. g., teaching 

a child and a dog to pick up a stick. 

XII. General observations. 

a. In Avhat respects do children differ most ? 

b. What is the influence of heredity ! 

c. To what entent will environment and education overcome the effects of 

heredity ? 

QUESTIONS FOR CHILDREN, TO FIND OUT THE CONTENTS AND WORKINGS OF THEIR 

MINDS. 

[The plan involves selection of some ten children, differing in ability, training, 
school advantages, in groups of about the same age. Each one is to be asked every 
question alone. The answers are to be accurately recorded in uniform style for filing 
and comparison.] 

I. Observation. 

How many legs has a fly ? How many wings ? What can a fly do that you can 
not ? When a horse eats grass does he walk forward or backward ? A cow ? 
How many toes has a horse? How many feet has a snake? How does a 
robin look ? What kind of nest does she build ? What colored clothes does 
a policeman wear? How does a dog cross a deep stream? What color is 
the sky ? 

II. Information. 

Who is the President of the United States ? Where do potatoes come from ? 
What are your shoes made of? What is leather ? Where does milk come 
from ? Did you ever see the surface of the earth ? Why is it dark at night ? 
How are the streets of the city lighted at night ? 

III. Sense of beauty. 

What is the prettiest thing you ever saw? Why do you think it is pretty? 
What kind of music do you like best ? What are the prettiest flowers you 
know ? Do you like pictures ? Why ? 

IV. Personal tastes. 

What games do you like to play best ? Why ? What would you like for Christ- 
mas? What little boy or girl do you like best ? Why? Which do you like 
better, city or country ? Why ? Would you rather ride in the cars or in 
a carriage? What colored flowers do you like best? 

V. Imagination. 

If you should go to the moon what would you see ? What are fairies ? How- 
does an angel look ? What is lightning ? What would you like to do when 
you grow up ? What do dogs think about ? Can they talk to each other? 
How? What is heaven like? What is the sky made of? How far away 
is the sky ? 

VI. Reasoning powers. 

Why doesn't it snow in summer? Why does a cat make so much noise when 
she walks? Where do the fishes go when it rains? Why doesn't a dog 
walk on two legs? Are snow and rain alike? Why does a fire engine go 
so fast? What is the use of doors? Why don't grown-up people go to 
school? Do bootblacks like to have it rain? Why doesn't grass grow in 
winter? 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE TRAINING" OF TEACHERS IN THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES 

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE DEPARTMENT 

OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 

There are four facts which make it impossible to suppose that the 
great majority of our teachers can be induced to prepare themselves for 
their work by pursuing a course of study in a normal school for 2 or 3 
years, or in any institution whose specific object is the professional 
training of teachers : (1 ) A very large majority of our teachers are women, 
and, therefore, in the nature of the case do not intend to make teaching 
a life-work; (2) partly because of this and partly because of the low 
estimate which is put on the work of teaching, teachers are very poorly 
paid; (3) most teachers can earn even the low wages they receive for 
only a part of the year, since schools in the rural districts are not kept 
open during the whole of the year; (4) chiefly because of the two facts 
last mentioned the greater part of the men who engage in teaching do 
not intend to make a life-work of it, but use it simply as a stepping- 
stone to something else. 

/ There is good reason for supposing that most of these facts are of a 
transient nature. The study of the scieuce of education, which is so 
marked a characteristic of the history of education in this century, and 
which is becoming more and more thorough, and the importance of 
which is becoming more and more generally recognized, is sure to work 
profound changes in the course of time. When the American public come 
to realize the transcendent importance of the work the teacher under- 
takes to do, when they really understand that upon the proper develop- 
ment of the child all good causes depend, to use Gr. Stanley Hall's phrase, 
and when they realize to what an exteut this depends upon the teacher, 
and how impossible it is for him to do his work properly without the 
most careful and thorough preparation, they will see to it that he has 
such preparation. Their schools will be open at least 10 mouths in the 
year and children everywhere will be required by rigidly enforced laws 
to attend them; their teachers will receive salaries more nearly in keep- 
ing with the importance of their work, and men with natural aptitude 
for teaching will have no temptation to quit the profession of teaching 
lor any other. A large majority of our teachers will probably continue 
to be women, but the time will surely come when public opinion will 
imperatively demand that they make careful and thorough preparation 
for their work, and they will the more readily comply with it the more 
114 



TRAINING IN THE NEW YOKE ACADEMIES. 115 

clearly they perceive that in preparing themselves to teach they are 
giving themselves the best possible preparation for the only work that 
is more important than that of the teacher — the work of the mother. 

Bnt we are living in the present, not in the future, and onr business 
is to deal with facts as they are. not as they may be, or ought to be, or 
as we hope they will be. I think it was Fuller who said "he would 
have caught a great cold if lie had had no clothes to wear bnt the skin 
of a bear not killed." and onr children will be very badly taught if we 
neglect the professional training of teachers altogether because we can- 
not give them such training as they ought to have. Looking existing 
facts squarely in the face, one of the most important problems before 
the educators of to-day is, how to give the rank and tile of teachers, the 
poorly paid teachers of country schools, the best preparation which the 
condition of things in onr time makes possible. 

I think the most suggestive and hopeful experiment in this direction 
is now making in some of the academies and union schools of the State 
of Xew York, and therefore I propose to give a somewhat detailed ac- 
count of it. 

It will be remembered that the first attempt made by any State in 
this country to provide professional training for teachers was made by 
the State of Xew York. But the normal departments established in 
certain academies in that State by the board of regents of the univer- 
sity aimed to give substantially the same amount of training as the 
normal schools which were subsequently established. That, undoubt- 
edly, was one of the reasons why they failed. The teachers for whom 
they were provided could not afford to take such a long and thorough 
course. But after the State had adopted a different policy, after it had 
concentrated its resources in a single institution whose courses of study 
and methods of teaching were entirely determined by the needs of in- 
tending teachers, the need of properly trained teachers for the country 
schools, the schools whose salaries could not secure the services of the 
graduates of the normal school, continued to be felt, and in response to it 
teachers' departments in academies and union schools were reestab- 
lished in 1849. From that time until 1889, teachers' classes were pro- 
vided for by the board of regents in certain academies and union 
schools, with courses of study which were intended to be adapted to 
the needs and circumstances of the teachers of the country schools. 

The limits within which I am obliged to confine myself, compel me to 
omit the history of these training classes, as interesting and suggestive as 
I think a careful study of it would prove to me. I therefore pass at once 
to speak of the experiment now making in accordance with a law passed 
in 1889 which transferred their supervision from the supervision of the 
board of regents of the university to that of the superintendent of the 
department of public instruction. 

The object of the law was to make possible the unification of the 
various agencies for the training of teachers in the State so as to make 



116 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

them a consistent and organic whole. Before its passage, the teachers' 
classes in academies and union sehools were under the supervision of 
of the board of regents, while the institutes and normal schools of the 
State were under the supervision of the superintendent of public in- 
struction. It was so obviously desirable that the department which 
had exclusive supervision of the institute and normal schools should 
have supervision of all the agencies for training teachers, that the pro- 
loosed change met with practically no opposition. 

In the State of New York there are four such agencies, normal schools, 
teachers' institutes, teachers' classes in academies and union schools, 
and the system of uniform examinations. The relation between the last 
two is so close that it seems to me desirable to explain what the sys- 
tem of uniform examinations is and how it came to be adopted. I will 
therefore quote from Superintendent Draper's report for the year 1888, 
as follows : 

* 

For several years the loose and indiscriminate issuance of certificates by local 
officers has been the source of earnest solicitude and discussion by the progressive 
school-workers of the State, until educational sentiment has very generally crystal- 
lized in favor of a public uniform examination, upon question papers prepared by 
the state department, the answer papers to be returned to, and marked at, the de- 
partment. ' * * * 

During tbe last session of the legislature a comprehensive measure designed to 
establish such a system passed both houses, but failed to become a law for want of 
the approval of the governor. The pendency of this measure attracted very general 
attention and aroused a full discussion of the matters to which it related and the 
evils it was intended to arrest, among the people and in the press, which has been pro- 
ductive of very consequential results. 

At a meeting of the State Teachers' Association, in July last, action was unani- 
mously taken suggesting that the school commissioners request the department to 
supply the question papers and agree to issue no certificates except upon regular 
examinations conducted in part, at least, in writing. Acting upon this suggestion 
65 commissioners of the 113 promptly prepared the request and entered into the 
agreement, and from the 1st of September the question papers have been supplied 
at the first of each month from the department. So far as I am informed the experi- 
ment has resulted successfully, and without friction or embarrassment, wherever 
tried in good faith. 

Experience has, of course, shown the advisability and indicated the features of a 
more perfect plan, which has been arranged and submitted to the commisioners whose 
terms of office commenced on the 1st day of January, 1888. They have been left 
free to adopt it or not, but over 80 have asked for the question papers and sig- 
nified their readiness to enter upon the system and be subject to the regulations con- 
cerning it.* 

New forms of certificates have been prescribed for the districts entering upon the 
uniform examination system. Three grades of certificates have been prescribed for 
the districts entering upon the uniform examination system. Three grades of cer- 
tificates are provided as heretofore, but the length of time which they have to run 
has been changed. The new first-grade certificate will be good for 5 years, the 
second grade for 2 years, and the third grade for 6 months. 

Candidates for certificates of the third grade will be required to pass an oral ex- 
amination iu reading, and a written examination in arithmetic, composition, geog- 
raphy, grammar, orthography, penmanship, and physiology and hygiene. Candi- 



* They have all since entered upon the system. 



TRAINING IN THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 117 

dates for certificates of the second grade will be required to pass an oral examination 
in reading and a written examination in the subjects required for certificates of the 
third grade, also in American history, civil government, current topics, and elemen- 
tary drawing from copies and objects. Candidates for certificates of the first grade 
will be required to pass a written examination in the subjects required for a certifi- 
cate of the second grade, with the exception of reading, also in algebra, bookkeep- 
ing, elements of physics, methods, and school laAv. 

The third-grade certificate can not be issued to the same person more than twice. 
It is only intended for beginners. The second-grade certificate can only be renewed 
upon reexamination. The first grade may be renewed, in the discretion of the com- 
missioner, without reexamination. Examinations will be held in the second and 
third grades monthly, and will be concluded in one day. Examinations for the first 
grade will be held twice in each year, in March and August, and continue two days. 
The manifest purpose of this arrangement is to require teachers to work up into the 
highest grades. * * * 

The examinations must be conducted, at least in part, in writing, and the answer 
papers must be kept on file by the commissioner subject to the order of the state 
department. The standards which must be attained in order to secure a certificate 
are fixed in the regulations. The commissioner is at liberty to extend the examina- 
tion beyond that prescribed by the department if he chooses. He may also put his 
standards higher than those fixed by the department. He may refuse to issue a 
certificate at any time. But he can not hold a less severe examination, nor can he lower 
the standards. The general purpose of the system is to fix minimum standards of 
qualifications which all must certainly attain who teach in the public schools. 

In the report for 1889 there is a paragraph which throws further light 
upon the relation of teachers' classes to the system of uniform exami- 
nations. It is as follows : 

The examinations for commissioner's certificates have been somewhat modified with 
reference to the work of the classes. A regular examination is now held by the 
commissioner of the institution at the conclusion of each term, which relates, so 
far as is deemed advisable, to the work done by the class in the preceding term. This 
policy will be continued, and with a view to inducing all candidates for teachers' 
certificates in the rural districts to go through the training classes and so gain the 
professional work therein held out to them. Indeed, it does not seem too much to 
hope that in time a teacher's certificate in the country will be gained only at the end 
of a fair course of professional study in an institution so situated and equipped as 
to enable it to provide such course.* 

The report for 1888 contains a paragraph which indicates the relation 
which the teachers' classes will eventually sustain to the normal schools. 
It is as follows : 

The course of study in the training class should conform to that in the normal 
schools, so that a student going from one to the other would find his work not only 
along the same lines and. harmonious^ but continuous and without a break. Ulti- 

* That time seems nearer at hand than the last sentence would indicate. A letter 
from Superintendent Draper, dated February 13, 1890, contains the following para- 
graph : " There is a strong movement in this State towards exacting professional 
training on the part of all persons desiring to teach in the public schools. A bill is 
now pending in the legislature which provides that after January 1, 1892, no candi- 
date shall be licensed or employed in any city or incorporated village Avho, in addi- 
tion to scholastic qualifications, has not spent at least 32 weeks in a normal school 
or training class." Of the fate of this bill I am not at this writing informed, but 
that some such law will be passed in New York before many years seems very nearly 
certain, unless all signs fail. 



118 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

match, as rapidly as practicable, the normal schools should cease the elementary 
and nonprofessional work, which can as well be done in the ordinary schools of 
the State. Professional work which can be done in the training classes should be 
left to them. Graduation from the classes should entitle admission to the normal 
schools. * 

So soon as practicable after the passage of the law making it the 
duty of the State superintendent to supervise the training classes, a 
conference was held between that officer, the normal-school principals, 
and a committee of the principals of academies and union schools, at 
which the whole subject was very carefully considered and a plan of 
operations was agreed upon. 

About sixty institutions were designated to organize classes for the 
fall term. The selection of these institutions was determined by the 
following considerations: 

(1) The proper distribution of the classes among the counties of the State. 

(2) The location of the classes to accommodate the greatest number of suitable 
candidates. 

(3) Such equipment of the institution as will give assurance of doing substantial 
work both in the theory and practice of teaching. 

Candidates for admission must be at least 16 years old; must hold the third-grade 
certificate or the regents' preliminary certificate and a pass card in physiology; and 
must subscribe to a declaration to the effect that their object in asking admission to 
the training class is to prepare themselves for teaching in the public schools of the 
State, and that it is their intention to become teachers. The trustees, principals, 
and school commissioner are required to satisfy themselves that the candidates have 
the moral character, talents, and aptness necessary to success in teaching. 

Each class must consist of not less than 10 members and must be instructed for 
not less than 10 or more than 13 weeks. The institutions in which these classes are 
taught receive $1 for each week's instruction of each member, but the whole num- 
ber of weeks allowed each class must not be more than 25. The money paid by the 
State goes to the management of the institution, and not to any individual. The 
violation of this rule is considered as a sufficient reason for discontinuing the 
assignment. 

Each class, besides being under the inspection of an officer who devotes his entire 
time to that work, is subject to the visitation of the school commissioner of the 
district in which the institution in which the class is organized is situated. It 
is likewise his duty to advise and assist the principals of those institutions in the 
organization, management, and final examination of those classes, and to make a 
report to the State superintendent, in the manner prescribed by him, concerning 
their instruction and the qualifications of their individual members. 

Two periods of 45 minutes each must be devoted to instruction in the topics laid 
down in the course of study. In addition, such members of the class as have time 
and ability may be permitted to pursue such other studies as are taught in the insti- 
tution and as Avill be most profitable to them, for which, however, no tuition may 
be charged. 

The following was the course of study for 1889-90 : 

First term. — The mental powers and the laws of mental development (1 week), 
school economy (3 weeks), reading and spelling (3 weeks), numbers (3 weeks), 
regents' examination (1 week). 

Examination of training class for a second-grade license under the State uniform 
examination at the close of the term. 



* This paragraph was written, it will be remembered, before the passage of the law 
transferring the supervision of the classes to the department of public instruction. 



TRAINING IN THE NEW YORK ACADEMIES. 119 

Methodsin form study and drawing, 1 day each week through the term. 

As one term is not considered long enough to give teachers the training they need, 
institutions with ample facilities and a good record may be appointed to instruct 
two classes during the year. 

The course of study for the second term was as follows : 

History of education (2 weeks), school law (1 week), language (3 weeks), primary 
geography (2 weeks), methods in physiology (2 weeks), examination of training class 
for a second-grade license under the State uniform examination at the end of the 
term; methods in form study and drawing, 1 day each week through the term. 

It will he noted that the above course devotes 13 weeks to the study of methods 
during the two terms. Part of this time is spent in observation and practice work 
under the direction of the teacher of the class. He is expected at least twice a week 
to give the class an opportunity to witness practical work, in order that they may be 
trained how to observe critically and to intelligently interpret the principles of 
teaching. In addition, it is desired that each member of the class be given actual 
work in teaching as often as consistent with the work of the school. 



CHAPTER X. 

GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 

We have traced the development of the normal idea in this country 
from the time when it was first faintly conceived by Elisha Tiknor, in 
1789, until the founding' of the New York College for the Training- of 
Teachers. 

Has there been progress, and, if so, what are its moments? 

That there has been progress, no candid student of education al history 
will deny, but as to its moments there will be a much greater diversity 
of opinion. 

The first chapter in the history of State aid in the preparation of 
teachers — the history of the teachers' classes in the New York acade- 
mies up to 1844 — is valuable chiefly as a warning. The first and most 
important lesson which it teaches is that institutions which undertake 
the training- of teachers should make that their sole business, or at least 
should put their department of pedagogy in the hands of a man who 
devotes his entire attention to it ; to treat the science of pedagogy as a 
matter of secondary concern is fatal, because its value is far from being 
universally conceded. For a similar reason it is important that normal 
departments and departments of pedagogy should be in charge of men 
of first-rate ability. Until the just claims of the science of pedagogy 
are universally recognized, it is more than doubtful whether chairs of 
pedagogy will not do more harm than good when filled by men of ordi- 
nary ability, whose feeble and commonplace treatment of their subject 
fails to show the necessity of such departments. 

Another lesson taught with great emphasis by that history is the ne- 
cessity of taking into account the condition and circumstances of teach- 
ers in determining the courses of study of training classes and normal 
schools. No one can read President Gray's account of what a normal 
school should be without being struck by the almost pathetic contrast 
between his ideal normal school and the reality forced upon him by cir- 
cumstances. An institution which is in its conception a school of phi- 
losophy, admits students without examination who hold second-grade 
certificates! But whatever may be thought of his theory, we shall 
agree that his practice is right. The tierce struggles between the ideal 
and the real doubtless result in concessions on both sides, but the largest 
concessions are wrung from the ideal, though in the nature of the case 
it is sure to get the better in the long run; for the ideal never ceases 
to be the ideal, while the real of to-day is not the real of to-morrow. 
120 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 121 

Each adjustment of the real in favor of the ideal is the death of one 
real and the birth of another, but ideals are tireless and merciless, and 
each new real must meet the fate of its predecessors in the course of 
time. But the final victory of the ideal is won only by an uninterrupted 
series of apparent defeats. Hence institutions which undertake to trai n 
teachers must begin where they can. However lofty the ideal they 
allow themselves to cherish, they must base their courses of study on 
the solid ground of actual facts. The teachers' classes in the New 
York academies neglected to do this, and hence they failed to accom- 
plish their purpose. 

The significance of the normal schools of Massachusetts, up to the 
time when Dr. Dickinson became principal of the school at Westfield, 
consisted not so much in the teaching of any particular philosophy of 
education as in the recognition of the fact that there is such a philos-. 
ophy, and that teaching is good or bad according as it conforms to it. 
Their insistence upon this truth was of course of capital importance, 
inasmuch as it completely changed the point of view of those who ac- 
cepted it. Perhaps the most valuable doctrines taught by these schools 
related to discipline and in general to the motives which teachers should 
appeal to. When Cyrus Peirce began to teach he was a firm believer 
in corporal punishment, and he put his theory into practice with con- 
scientious energy. Little by little he began to have doubts of its value, 
and long before he was made principal of the school at Lexington he 
had come to disbelieve in it thoroughly. As he said in his letter to 
Barnard, his" theory went to the entire exclusion of corporal punish- 
ment, and also of the premium and emulation system. He was able to 
dispense with such motives in part through his power of appealing to 
his pupils' sense of duty, in part through his ability to arouse their 
interest in the subjects they studied, and he insisted that they could 
reach the same results in the same'way. 

Another very valuable contribution to educational doctrine by these 
schools was their theory as to the kind and amount of knowledge of the 
so-called academic subjects which intending teachers should have. 
From the first they were organized on the theory that the knowledge 
which suffices to make an intelligent citizen is not sufficient to make a 
good teacher; that the teacher should know more of what he under- 
takes to teach than an intelligent citizen does, in order that intelligent 
citizens may know as much as they ought to know, and that therefore 
the distinction drawn by some normal schools between academic and 
professional work is unsound and illogical. They have held from the 
beginning that the specific and peculiar knowledge of the subjects he 
undertakes to impart, which the teacher needs simply because lie is a 
teacher, is as much entitled to be called professional as the study of the 
science and art of teaching. 

And the Lexington Normal School from the first set an example which 
the normal schools of this country would do well to follow; it did what 



122 TRAINING OF- TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

it could to keep out of the profession of teaching those who have no 
natural aptitude for it, and it recognized itself as under an obligation, 
not to its pupils to help them to good positions, but to the public to 
assist them to select teachers suited to their needs. 

The normal school at Oswego certainly made some important advances. 
The objective method of teaching, the method which brings the mind of 
the pupil into direct contact with facts, and thus seeks to stimulate it 
to the proper kind of activity, first received its complete illustration in 
all grades of schools in the practice school of this institution. In the 
beginning, I imagine that the objective method, as conceived by Dr. 
Sheldon, was nearly identical with the system of primary instruction 
by object lessons. But little by little his conception of its scope en- 
larged. He saw that as pupils can gain clear and definite concepts of 
objects, not by memorizing lessons about them, but by direct examina- 
tion of them, and in that way only, so the only way to stimulate the 
mind to any kind of activity is to bring it into contact with those facts, 
the knowledge of which has a natural tendency to occasion it. What- 
ever the subject of study, he saw that the true order is, first, the reality, 
and then the play of the mind about it. And when he grasped the idea 
he put it into practice and illustrated it in all the grades of his practice 
school. In doing this, I say that the Oswego school made a distinct 
advance. I do not, of course, mean to intimate that the objective method, 
as a method of teaching, was new when it was taught to the students 
of the Oswego training school. As a method of teaching it is certainly 
as old as Socrates, probably much older. Indeed, no more perfect illus- 
tration of it could be given than is given by the Socratic method, and 
it is safe to say that all first-rate teachers from and before Socrates 
down to the present have used it more or less consistently. No one 
can read the letter of Cyrus Pierce to Barnard and doubt that he taught 
objectively. He taught his pupils ^hat they should do in certain 
emergencies, not by telling them what they ought to do, but by asking 
them what they would do, doubtless helping them, Socratic fashion, to 
see their mistakes when they answered wrong. But to use a method 
of teaching is one thing; to formulate it so clearly as to be able to teach 
it to others is a very different thing. Men reasoned a long time before 
Aristotle wrote his Logic, or Bacon his Novum Organum, and good 
teachers taught objectively a long time before Comenius, with more 
or less clearness, first formulated the theory. As a theory, it was first 
taught in this country by Dr. J. W. Dickinson during his principalship 
of the normal school at Westfield, but it was first illustrated in all grades 
of the public school, from the primary department to the high school, in 
the practice school at Oswego. 

The school at Oswego marks an epoch in the history of the normal 
schools of this country in another respect, and that is, in the emphasis 
which it laid upon the importance of practice teaching. In the half- 
dozen State normal schools of Massachusetts to-day there is but one 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 123 

practice school, at Frainingham, and that was discontinued while the 
school was at West Newton. 

From the first, the school at Oswego set a high value upon this work, 
and it is doubtless due in no small measure to its influence, that a prac- 
tice school is now so generally regarded as an indispensable adjunct of 
a normal school. 

But a teacher may have a thorough comprehension of the objective 
method, and of the subjects he undertakes to teach, and be a poor 
teacher because he may not know enough of children to know what facts 
to direct their attention to. No argument is needed to show that the 
better a teacher knows children, the more he knows of their likes and 
dislikes, of their knowledge and their ignorance, of the things that in- 
terest them and the modes in which their interests are developed, the 
more effectively he can use the objective method. 

This is one of the reasons why the normal school at Worcester, in 
making the study of children a part of the regular work of its students, 
has taken an important step forward. I say one of the reasons 5 the 
uses to which a teacher's knowledge of children can be put are so various, 
the attitude of mind and the sympathy with children which naturally 
result from such study are so important, that I hesitate to attempt to 
express in a set of formal propositions what I regard as the significance 
of that movement. I believe that so many pedagogic problems of 
transcendent importance must wait for their solution until generation 
after generation of trained teachers have made a record of their observa- 
tions and experiments, that I am quite unable to give adequate expres- 
sion of my conception of the significance of the first step in this country 
on the road that leads to this destination. 

But a teacher may have a perfect comprehension of the objective 
method and great skill in applying it; he may have a profound knowl- 
edge of the psychology of children so as to have all the help which that 
science can give him in his attempts to bring the minds of his pupil into 
contact with the kind of facts most likely to stimulate them to the right 
kind of activity. But what is the right kind of activity ? If he answers 
that it is that kind of activity which results in a certain kind of devel- 
opment, and which leads to the acquisition of certain valuable knowl- 
edge, he only opens the door to further questions. Why does he regard 
development as an end of education! As we glance back over the 
history of education we see that this is but one of many ideas of educa- 
tion which the nations of the world have cherished. Upon A\diat does 
he base his contention that- his ideal is the true one? And further, in 
what precisely does his ideal consist? What kind of development is he 
aiming at? Symmetrical development, he would probably answer. 
But what is symmetrical development? When are our faculties harmo- 
niously developed ? What is their true function, their proper relation 
to each other, in the ideal man? Further, what are his tests for deter- 



124 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE ITNITED STATES. 

mining the value of knowledge, and how did he get it? And still 
further, what is the nature of the knowledge he wishes to help his pupils 
to acquire 1 ? Does he seek to give them absolutely certain knowledge 
of certain important truths 1 Or does he seek to have him regard all 
things believed and known, as the«phrase goes, as working hypotheses, 
very excellent indeed for the practical purposes of life, but utterly val- 
ueless to the speculative intellect in its search after absolute knowledge ? 
Plainly, until he can answer these questions, he has no philosophy of 
education, no philosophy of his methods of teaching, no rationale of his 
processes 5 in one word, no justification for what he does. The monks 
of the Middle Ages thought asceticism, a life of repression and self- 
denial, the ideal life. Were they right*? If so, our whole scheme of 
education is fundamentally and thoroughly false. The Chinese agree 
with us in insisting on the importance of development, but the faculty 
they would lay chief stress on is the mechanical memory. Are they 
right ? 

It is the vivid perception of these difficulties, the clear realization of 
the fact that our educational edifice, however magnificent in its outlines 
and elaborate in its details, is without a foundation unless that founda- 
tion is found in philosophy ; and further, that unless philosophy not only 
gives us our starting point and our goal but guides us all along the 
journey by which we attempt to traverse the distance between the two, 
we are mere empiricists, no matter how much Ave know of the minds of 
children and how skillfully we use it for the accomplishment of our pur- 
poses. It is the vivid realization of these truths that determines the 
conception which President Gray has attempted to embody in the nor- 
mal school at St. Cloud. " The philosophy of method is the method of 
philosophy," he says ; true, in precisely the same sense that the route 
from Chicago to New York is the route from New York to Chicago. In 
stating the philosophy of method, the natural course is to start from the 
method and reason back step by step until the facts of consciousness 
are reached, upon which, in the last analysis, it is based. In stating 
the method of philosophy the natural course is to take the opposite 
direction, starting from the facts of conciousness, to reason step by step 
until we have found a firm basis for science and the activities of every- 
day life. Hence, inasmuch as the normal school exists for the purpose 
of making better teachers; inasmuch as it " is to train teachers in 
the art of knowing and expressing knowledge, in the art of being, it 
must, in order to work intelligently, be in possession of the science of 
knowledge. This fact constitutes it a technical school of university 
grade, and the highest in a possible series of schools in a system of edu- 
cation, since it assumes to inquire into the very grounds of all forms of 
knowledge, and must thus bring into review the purposes, processes, 
and results of all other schools. In a word, it is a school of philosophy." 

This is certainly suggestive. 1 do not here stop to inquire whether 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 125 

the logical consequences of this reasoning are not that an institution 
can not exist whose mission is to prepare teachers for the lower grades 
of schools, and whose courses of study are adapted to this end ; I do not 
raise the question whether, when the normal school has risen to its mis- 
sion, when it has become a technical school of university grade, the 
highest in a possible series of schools — I do not raise the question 
whether it may not be urged with the same force that the schools which 
then do the work which the normal schools are now doing will not also 
be, in their conception, schools of a university grade, rudimentary 
schools of philosophy, so to speak ; I do not raise these questions because 
here our business is to get at " the soul of truth " in this conception. 
That it has an element of truth of great value I, at any rate, am firmly 
convinced. The logical outcome of the movement inaugurated in Mas- 
aschusetts in the year 1839 certainly is an institution which recognizes 
as one of its duties the task of formulating and teaching the philosophy 
of method, and this philosophy of method will be the method of philos- 
ophy. 

It is in the complete recognition of this truth contended for by Pres- 
ident Gray that an institution which does thoroughly the work which 
the normal schools undertake must be a technical school of university 
grade — the highest in a possible series of schools in a system of educa- 
tion — that I find the great significance of the Xew York College for the 
Training of Teachers. Surely it is not too much to say that the found- 
ing of an institution which embodies such an idea is an epoch in the 
history of education, not only in this country but in the world. 

SUGGESTIONS. 

But what of the future ? In what direction shall the friends of edu- 
cation bend their energies in order to bring about the more thorough 
training of teachers ? What functions should be assigned to existing 
agencies? Should any new ones be established? 

Taking up these questions in the reverse order in which I have asked 
them I should answer the last one in the negative. Institutes, teachers' 
classes in academies and high schools, normal schools, in which I would 
include city training schools, professorships of pedagogy, schools of 
pedagogy, of which the Xew York College for the Training of Teachers is 
the only example in this country, cover the ground. 

What functions should be assigned to them ? That question has been 
most discussed in this country with reference to normal schools, and I 
think it will be convenient for us to begin with them. They are the only 
agency which has been employed on a large scale in this conn try ,-or, for 
that matter, in the world, for the training of teachers, and there is, there- 
fore, a larger body of history in their case from which to draw sugges- 
tions. 



126 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

I agree Avitli President Gray that it is impossible to define the work 
of an institution in any other manner than to reveal its conception of its 
purpose and problem. Let us then begin our inquiry as he has done by 
asking. What was the normal school set to do ? What means does it 
employ to accomplish its end? 

I know of no way of learning the answer to these questions except by 
going to history. I can not accept President Gray's a priori method, be- 
cause being a priori it takes no account of facts whose character is such 
that they decide the whole question. Since the normal school was set 
to make better teachers by making their work rational, reasons Presi- 
dent Gray, and since their work can only be entirely rational by being 
based on a sound philosophy, therefore, in order to accomplish its pur- 
pose it must be a school of philosophy. Now, when I say that I regard 
that as an entirely logical argument, based on true premises, it would 
seem that I ought to admit the conclusion, but I do not. I am not at 
all clear that with such beings as men to do the work of such a world as 
the one we live in it is possible to make the work of the rank and file 
of teachers entirely rational. If their work is to be entirely rational, it 
must be based on philosophy, and the institution which prepares them 
for it must be a school of x>hilosophy. But if the work of the great ma- 
jority can not be entirely rational, if unalterable facts make that out of 
the question, then the institutions which prepare them to make their 
work as rational as possible, under the circumstances, may be as unlike 
a school of philosophy as the normal school at Worcester, which ex- 
pressly disclaims the teaching of metaphysics. What are these unalter- 
able facts? Let any reader seriously ask himself what prevents the 
teachers of the town he lives in from making such a study of Kant's 
Critique as President Gray's ideal contemplates, and he will not need to 
read my answer. The teachers of your town, my reader, have not 
mastered Kant because they could not if they wanted to, and if they 
had, your town would be obliged to get along without their services. 
The work of the world must be done with such tools as the world has, 
and the teaching of the world must be done by such men and women as 
the compensation offered for it can secure. The men and women who 
can assimilate a great system of philosophy are not forthcoming in our 
world in sufficient numbers to take charge of the schools of the world, 
and if they were, and if they had spent the long years in study which 
such an achievement requires, they could hardly be induced to do it for 
$30 or $40 a month. It seems to me, therefore, pretty near self-evident 
that most of our schools must be taught by teachers who have no 
system of philosophy, and that they must either get their training in 
institutions which are not schools of philosophy or go without it alto- 
gether. The truth of the matter is that the great majority of teachers 
are in much the same predicament in this particular as the rest of the 
world. The work of every man implies ;\ set of beliefs whose foundation 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 127 

can be found only in philosophy. But as Edison has made some re- 
markable inventions, probably without any system of philosophy, so 
Pestalozzi, who was certainly innocent of any such thing, proved a rather 
inspiring teacher. 

Rejecting President Gray's method, then, and going to history, what 
does it tell us about the work the normal school was set to do. Now, it 
seems to me there are two ways of getting the testimony of history on 
this point. We may inquire (1) what the founders of the normal school 
intended it to be, so far as we can learn from the courses of study and 
conditions of admission which they laid down and from any other 
attainable evidence, and (2) we niay inquire what kind of teachers have 
actually been trained in the normal school. If the answers to these 
questions coincide, I think Ave may conclude that we have learned what 
the normal school was set to do. 

To both these questions the answer of history is perfectly clear. The 
fact that of the first three normal schools in this country one was for 
females exclusively at a time when no positions to teach were open to 
women except in the elementary schools, and possibly a few subordinate 
positions in the secondary schools, and the fact that they all had the same 
course of study, proves conclusively that what they were intended to do 
was to train teachers for the lower grades of schools. And the example 
of Massachusetts in this particular has been followed more or less closely 
by all the normal schools of the country. It is, of course, true that the 
conditions of admission have been raised and that the courses of study 
have been considerably extended. But so have they been in the col- 
leges of the country, and it is safe to say that the standard of scholar- 
ship in the latter is quite as much higher than that of the normal schools 
to-day as it was fifty years ago. 

The answer which history returns to the second question, as to the 
kind of teachers which have been trained in them, is equally clear. In 
1875, Miss Delia A. Lathrop, herself a graduate of the Oswego Normal 
School, and then principal of the training school in Cincinnati, read a 
paper before the National Educational Asssociation containing the fol- 
lowing paragraph : 

The faculties of these schools [the normal schools] will not take exception to the 
statement that many, a large proportion, of their graduates are persons of indifferent 
intellectual acquirements. They have haroly the education necessary to get a cer- 
tificate for teaching a village or city school, with such a margin of attainment as 
shall afford them a good degree of self-respect. The cases are rare, I think you will 
all admit, in which the acquirements reach the standard of college graduation; in 
the majority of instances they are less than that of a first-class city high school. I 
know we normal-school people feel it to be a serious matter to admit so much, and 
it is not necessary, perhaps, to publish our weaknesses to the world, but in the 
privacy of our own conferences we ought to have the courage to know andspeaktho 
truth. Hence it follows that college graduates take precedence of normal-school 
graduates in situations demanding excellent scholarship. It would be interesting 
to know how many normal-school graduates are to-day employed as principals of 
secondary schools, high schools, or academies, and how many as assistants in such 



128 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

schools. Their deficiency in the higher departments of education cuts them off from 
aspiration even to such places.* 

The substantial truth of this statement, I believe, no one acquainted 
with the facts will venture to question . 

Since, then, the normal school was from the first designed to train 
teachers for the elementary schools and for the subordinate positions in 
the secondary schools, and since this is the work which it has actually 
done I think we may fairly conclude that that is its true function. 

What means should it employ to accomplish its end? In attempting 
to answer this question we are at once confronted with the much dis- 
cussed question as to the proper course of study for a normal school. 
Should it be partly academic and partly professional,! or wholly pro- 
fessional ? In other words, is it a part of the work of the normal school 
to give instruction in the subjects which their students are afterwards 
to teach, or should they confine themselves entirely to instruction in the 
history and science and art of education, psychology, and the like? 

An examination of the preparation required of the teachers of the 
higher grades of schools will bring to light the principle by which the 
answer to this question must be determined. Who are the teachers in 
high schools and academies ? Graduates of colleges. Who are the pro- 
fessors in our colleges ? Men who have done post-graduate work of 
university grade for two or three years, men whose attainments fairly 
entitle them to a doctorate of philosophy. Who are our university pro- 
fessors ? Men of extraordinary ability who have made a profound and 
thorough study of their specialties in the best universities in the world, 
and whose great powers enabled them to thoroughly assimilate the in- 
struction which they received.! What is the meaning of these facts? 
Their meaning is that it is a universally recognized principle that 
teachers must know more than they are expected to teach. The teacher 
of science in a high school paid special attention to science during his 
college course, in order that he might learn enough to teach the high- 
school pupils. The professor of some particular branch of science in a 
college, besides paying special attention to it during his college course, 
spent two or three years in special study of it after graduation, in order 

* The report of the superintendent of public instruction for 1883 shows that there 
were at that time twenty-seven public schools, each employing fifteen or more 
teachers. Of these twenty-seven schools, sixteen had superintendents who were edu- 
cated in the university, six were in charge of men who were educated in schools out- 
side of the State, and five were supervised by graduates of the State normal school. 
This statement is sufficiently significant, but it does not exhibit the full extent to 
which the university has become the source from which the higher teaching force of 
the State is recruited. For example, in the Detroit high school there are seven 
assistants who were educated in the university, and this case is typical of the state 
of affairs in other first-class high schools. — Contributions to the Science of Educa- 
tion, W. H. Payne. 

1 1 use this term in this scu.se provisionally, as will appear further on. 

tit will of course be understood that these statements are made merely of the 
great majority of cases. 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 129 

that he might fit himself to teach college students. The university pro- 
fessor spent a larger time studying the same subject before he began to" 
teach, and has risen to his present position step by step as his writings 
and lectures proved him to have attained such a mastery of his subject 
as to qualify him to teach it to specialists. 

We need not go far to find the basis of this principle. Whether a 
teacher aims to communicate knowledge or to occasion the develop- 
ment of his pupils, it is alike necessary for him to know more than he 
hopes to teach. As Fitch well says, some knowledge is inevitably 
lost in transmission. A teacher deals with a variety of miuds, and if 
his knowledge of his subject is meager he can not select and adapt his 
matter to suit their different capacities. His range of illustrations will 
be limited; his examples stereotyped; his method of presenting his sub- 
ject weak and lifeless. Without interest in his subject he can not arouse 
it in his pupils. He can not stimulate their curiosity by giving them 
glimpses of landscapes lying beyond the field upon which they are 
especially concentrating their attention, because he has never seen them 
himself. He can not encourage them to think by encouraging them to 
ask questions, because he is afraid he would have to expose his igno- 
rance. And if some bright pupil chances to ask a question in spite of 
the forbidding atmosphere, he receives an equivocating, oracular an- 
swer, because the teacher is so painfully conscious of his own ignorance 
that he is afraid to say he does not know. That intellectual humility 
which naturally results from the feeling of the infinite smallness of what 
one knows in comparison with the infinite unknown, the pupils of such 
a teacher will never experience. They will never get the power that 
comes from seeing all the details of a subject as parts of a single whole, 
because the teacher knows nothing but disconnected, unorganized facts, 
and therefore can teach nothing else. 

These are a few of the considerations which justify the universally 
accepted principle that a teacher must know more than he expects to 
teach his pupils, because he can not teach all he knows. If this is true, 
it follows that the knowledge of a well-equipped teacher may be divided 
into two parts: (1) That which he has learned, not because he is to fol- 
low this or that occupation, but because he is a man; (2) that which he 
has learned because he needs it as a teaeher. The teacher's professional 
preparation, therefore, consists likewise of two parts : (1) Of the acquisi- 
tion of that knowledge of the subject he is to teach which he needs simply 
because he is a teacher ; and (2) that knowledge of the history, philosophy, 
and science of education, that knowledge of methods and practice in 
applying them which will make him an intelligent educator and a skill- 
ful teacher. It would seem, therefore, that unless there is a special 
reason for separating these two parts of the training of normal students 
that the natural course would be to make the same institution responsi- 
ble for both. An institution whose special work is the professional 
4890-^0. 8 9 



130 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

preparation of teachers, is much more likely to have right ideas as to 
the amount of knowledge of the subjects he is to teach which a teacher 
needs than any other, to say nothing of the fact that the teaching 
of academic subjects affords excellent opportunities for illustrating 
methods. 

But it is not only true that there are no special reasons for committing 
the first part of the teachers' professional training to some other insti- 
tution — there are no institutions which make provision for giving in- 
tending teachers of the normal- school grade a professional knowledge 
of the subjects they are to teach. The theory, therefore, that the aca- 
demic department of normal schools is a mere concession to existin ;* 
exigencies, I hold to be radically false. I hold with the Massachusetts 
board of education that "the design of the normal school is strictly 
professional j that is, to prepare in the best possible manner the pupils 
for the work of organizing, governing, and teaching the public schools," 
and that this professional preparation includes "the most thorough 
knowledge, first, of the branches of learning required to be taught in 
the schools ; second, of the best methods of teaching these branches j 
third, of right mental training ; " and I hold that in our system of schools 
the normal school is not only the proper agency for undertaking the 
whole of the professional training of intending teachers of a certain 
grade, but that it is the only institution which really professes to sup- 
lily any of his professional needs. The theory that normal schools have 
no business to give instruction in the subjects their students are pre- 
paring to teach, I regard as a survival of the fallacy of the monitorial 
system which held that the bare knowledge of a fact qualifies its pos- 
sessor to teach it. 

And when I undertake to estimate the weight of the various authori- 
ties on the two sides of the question, I acquiesce with the more confi- 
dence in the conclusion to which logic and our experience lead me. Able 
names can doubtless be quoted on both sides, but what authorities 
can those who deny the right of academic instruction in normal 
schools to be called professional work, what authorities can they 
throw in the scales to counterbalance the tremendous weight of the 
example of the Germans, who require their normal students to spend 
two years in getting a more thorough and scientific knowledge of the 
subjects they are to teach and one year in the study of pedagogy? 
What names can they oppose to those of Edward Everett, Horace Mann, 
Dr. J. W.Dickinson, Dr. William T. Harris, to say nothing of less known 
men? And, unless I am very much mistaken, the tide of opinion 
among normal- school men is setting very steadily in the direction of 
the position I am advocating. I can not take the space to quote from 
the letters I have received, but it is safe to say that, although there is 
not a consensus of opinion, the great majority of normal-school men in 
this country believe that that academic instruction which normal- school 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 131 

students need in order to prepare for teaching is a part of the pro- 
fessional work of normal schools. 

Assuming, then, that a part of the professional training of teachers 
consists in a special knowledge of the subjects they are preparing to 
teach, and that the whole of the professional training of teachers of the 
normal- school grade should be undertaken by normal schools, our 
next inquiry is, What kind of academic instruction should normal 
schools give ? What subjects, in other words, is it especially important 
for intending teachers of the best elementary schools to know ? 

I have no idea of attempting to give a detailed answer to this ques- 
tion. I propose merely to offer a few suggestions, with a brief state- 
ment of my reasons for them. 

I think we shall all agree that the development of the right kind of 
interests is the most important end of education, for with this end 
gained every thing else is secured. From this it follows that the most 
important part of the teacher's preparation is that which qualifies him 
for this work. What subjects does he need most of all to pay special 
attention to, in order to do this most successfully ! 

History, certainly, for one thing; chiefly, of course, the history of 
our own country, but general history also, if room can be found for it. 
State normal schools are under peculiar obligations to give their stu- 
dents thorough instruction in the history of the United States, and that 
history can not be understood without some knowledge of general his- 
tory. But apart from their relations to each other, the more the teacher 
knows of either the better fitted he is to occasion the development of 
healthy interest in his pupils. Of course, general history will not be 
taught in a formal way in any grade of school below the high school, 
but if the teacher has any knowledge of it he can find plenty of oppor- 
tunities to use it, and if his pupils have access to a library — which should 
form a part of the equipment of every school — his historical allusions 
and illustrations will be sure to set some of them to reading. It is hardly 
necessary to add that instruction in history in a normal school may be 
made to contribute powerfully to the knowledge of psychology and the 
history of education. History is the record of the conversion of human 
potentialities into actualities. What impulses have I that show me that I, 
with a different social environment, might have been a Spartan, or a monk, 
or a schoolman, or a knight? Such questions are sure to give the more 
thoughtful students a deeper interest in both psychology and history, 
and a more real knowledge of both. And the instructor in history in a 
normal school will surely not forget to make his pupils realize how pro- 
foundly the ideals of life have differed in different ages, and to call their 
attention to the very great difference in the prominence of the part 
which schools have played in different civilizations. If, as should be 
the case, the instructor in history is likewise the instructor in geog- 
raphy, he will have abundant opportunities to teach valuable historical 
truths, and at the same time, give reality to the psychological truth that 



132 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the environment of the mind is an exceedingly important factor in its 
development. 

Another subject upon which normal schools should lay great stress 
is English literature. The aim of instruction in this department should 
be twofold: First, to cultivate in the pupil a genuine taste for good 
books ; and, second, to give him as wide a knowledge as possible of the 
kind of reading most likely to develop a taste for good reading in the 
boys and girls of our schools. In fact, the professor of English litera- 
ture in a normal school should be quite as much a professor of reading. 
In connection with the professor of psychology he should make experi- 
ments to determine the land of books which children of different ages 
and types of mind like ; he should bring the results of these and similar 
experiments before his classes and help them to realize their value. He 
should make his pupils feel the truth which G. Stanley Hall has stated 
so emphatically: a At any rate I am profoundly convinced that just as, 
from the point of view that regards charity as a science rather than 
a virtue, it is wrong to give alms to beggars unless we are able and 
willing, personally, or by agencies to that end, to follow them up and 
see that our gifts are so spent as to do the recipient good and not harm, 
so the school has no right to teach how to read without doing much 
more than it now does to direct the taste and confirm the habit of read- 
ing what is good rather than what is bad." 

If society ever comes to see the place which the school ought to fill 
among the agencies of civilization, and to realize how essential the 
proper teaching of reading is to the proper work of the school, I be- 
lieve an acquaintance with, and an appreciation of, good literature will 
be regarded as an absolutely essential qualification of a teacher of ele- 
mentary schools. The college specialist may get along without it, but 
the elementary teacher can not. 

The solution of a large part of the problem of education depends 
upon the answer to the question, how to induce the pupils of our 
schools to form the habit of bringing their minds into contact with the 
best thoughts of the wise men of the race. When that problem is 
solved, the schools will have done all that influence can towards giving 
the right direction to the energies of the rising generation, and the 
solution of this problem, so far as it can be solved at all, depends upon 
the proper teaching of reading. 

I believe, also, that a prominent place in the course of study of a 
normal school should be given to natural science. Physiology, botany, 
zoology, mineralogy, geology, physics, astronomy, and chemistry should 
be taught — some of them because of their bearing on geography, others 
because they enable the teacher to explain many simple natural phe- 
nomena in which children are likely to have an interest, and others be- 
cause the study of them tends to develop those habits of careful obser- 
vation which are the teacher's best qualifications for forming such habits 



GENITAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 183 

in his pupils, and leading to that love of nature which naturally results 
from them. 

It goes without saying that the pupils of a normal school should be 
thoroughly grounded in all the subjects they are preparing to teach. 
In the study of those subjects in which they are instructed, not because 
they expect to teach them but because of the light they throw oh re- 
lated subjects, more or less of superficiality may be tolerated, but the sub- 
jects they are preparing to teach they should be taught thoroughly. They 
should be made to realize in their own experience the difference between 
empirical and scientific knowledge. They should be made to know 
American history, for example, not as a series of disconnected facts, 
but as the necessary unfolding of a great drama, owing to the fact that 
their geographical situation compelled different States, with unlike 
civilizations and unlike institutions, to attempt to unite themselves 
together into a harmonious whole. Everywhere and always their 
rational memory should be cultivated, and they should be made to real- 
ize the tremendous difference between knowing and thinking — between 
accepting a thing as true on authority, and seeing that it is true for 
one's self. 

A few words as to the second part of the professional work of a normal 
school, the teaching of pedagogy and related subjects. Of course, the 
history of education should be studied, and it seems to me so much of 
general history should be connected with it as to enable the student to 
realize the connection between the history of education and the history 
of civilization. The object aimed at should be to give the student a 
clear comprehension of the principles of the great educational reforms 
of the world. The subject should be so taught as to familiarize the class 
with the literature of the subject, and at the same time train them in 
habits of research. The course should include a survey of the educa- 
tional systems of the leading countries of Europe, and besides the system 
of the State in which the normal school is situated, those of one or more 
States of the Union which are regarded as particularly excellent — say, 
the systems of New York and Massachusetts. 

In connection with the science of education, special attention should 
be paid to the subject of educational values, that the student may have 
a clear comprehension of the relation between his tools and the work 
they are intended to accomplish. In instruction in methods, the student 
should never be allowed to lose sight of their psychological basis. The 
charge so often brought against normal-school graduates, that they are 
slaves of methods, is too often true, simply because they forget that a 
method of teaching derives its sole value from its conformity to the 
laws of the human mind. 

As to instruction in psychology, it is unnecessary for me to repeat the 
recommendations made elsewhere. I will only further remark that I re- 
gard the introduction of the methods of studying children pursued at 



134 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Worcester and the New York College for the Training of Teachers as the 
most significant fact in the history of the normal schools of this country.* 

I do not think the teaching of the ancient languages in our normal 
schools can be defended on the principle by means of which alone the 
teaching of some academic subjects can be justly regarded as a part of 
their professional work. Though it would not be safe to say that the 
graduates of those schools are never called upon to teach them, it is 
certainly true that it is quite exceptional, so much so that the normal 
school can not with any propriety claim that the preparation to teach 
them is any part of its legitimate work. And though the study of these 
languages of course throws a good deal of light on our own, no one 
would contend that 3 or 4 years spent on the study of them is time well 
spent for this purpose.' A third of the time spent on the study of the 
masterpieces of English would not only give the student a much better 
knowledge of the structure of his language but would at the same time 
tend to give him what is far more valuable — a living appreciation of 
good literature. It should always be borne in mind that the normal 
school is a professional school, but though it may in its professional 
character justly undertake some academic work, it does not follow that 
any academic instruction is a part of its legitimate work. Regarding 
the normal school as the professional school of students preparing to 
teach in the elementary schools and in the subordinate places in the 
secondary schools — and this we have seen is its function — all academic 
subjects should be rigidly excluded except those which the students 
are preparing to teach, or those related subjects which enable him the 
more thoroughly to comprehend the former. The normal school is not 
a school of general culture. The argument, therefore, that this or that 
subject should be taught in the normal school because of its culture 
value is entirely irrevelant. But even on this ground I do not believe 
the study of Latin and Greek in our normal schools can be defended. 
The " fruit-bearing stage" in these subjects can not be reached in the 
time that normal-school students can devote to them. 

In concluding this discussion as to the proper work of the normal 
school, it ought to be said that while always and everywhere it should 
be a strictly professional school, the work which it undertakes as such 

* There is, I freely grant, such a thing as teaching genius which is independent of 
training. There are teachers also who, though destitute of this genius, are yet 
thoughtful men, in whose minds the routine methods of the normal school are vivi- 
fied into living principles; but in the vast majority of cases these technical methods 
of the school workshop remain merely in the dead form of rules and maxims, and 
leave the teachers precisely where the apt mechanic now is. It is the insight into 
philosophical principles that gives a true and never-failing supply of intellectual 
energy to the teacher; it is the apprehension of ideas that ennobles and inspires him ; 
it is contact with the history of past efforts to educate the race that gives to him 
breadth and humanity. Without the sustaining energy thus supplied, it seems to 
me that the teacher's vocation is dreary enough ; with it, the're is a daily renewal of 
spiritual life for himself and his pupils. — Laurie, The Training of Teachers. 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 135 

will vary widely under different circumstances. Its function is to pre- 
pare teachers. Of this preparation, as we have seen, there are two ele- 
ments, scholarship and training in pedagogy. It can easily be seen that 
the work required of a normal shool in the matter of scholarship will 
depend greatly on its environment* If the schools from which its stu- 
dents come are very poor, if it must admit students with very little 
scholarship, or have no students, it is evident that it might, in its strictly 
professional character, lay great stress on scholarship and give a great 
part of its time to it. An amount and kind of academic instruction 
under such circumstances is not only admissible but required by the 
very nature of its function as a professional school for the training 
of teachers of a certain grade. That training which its students must 
have in order to make good teachers, and which they can not get any- 
where else, it must give them. The normal schools of the South for the 
training of colored teachers have rightly given their attention chiefly to 
scholarship. They have been the only schools in which their students 
could get the scholarship which is indispensable to the teacher, and, 
therefore, the schools whose function is the preparation of teachers have 
occupied themselves chiefly with supplying this want without in the 
slightest degree derogating from their professional charactei. 

We have seen that the function of the normal school is to train teach- 
ers for the best positions in the elementary and the subordinate positions 
in the secondary schools. Where shall those who are to fill the higher 
positions in the secondary schools, the superintendencies of the smaller 
cities, and positions of a similar grade^get their training? The answer 
is simple. They will either get it in the colleges they attend or they will 
not get it at all. 

Normal schools have endeavored to get college graduates to come to 
them for their professional training, but they have not succeeded to any 
considerable extent, and it is safe to say that they will not. Moreover, 
it is more than doubtful if it is desirable that they should: The differ- 
ence in the age, attainments, and development of the average normal 
student and the average college graduate is so great that the attempt 
to instruct them in the same classes would almost necessarily result in 
failure. Either, therefore, the teachers who fill the higher positions in 
our secondary schools must get their professional preparation at college 
or they will not get it at all. 

We have seen that the professional preparation of the teacher con- 
sists of two parts : (1) Of the acquisition of that knowledge of the sub- 
jects he is to teach which he makes simply because he is a teacher; and 
(2) that knowledge of the history, philosophy, and science of education, 
that knowledge of methods and practice in applying them, which will 
make him an intelligent educator and a skillful teacher. The college 
will give him the first part; ought it to give him the second? 

That that question can be asked strikes me as one of the most re- 
markable examples of the power of tradition and custom over man's 



138 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES, 

belief that the history of our times affords. Why should it not give 
the intending teacher professional preparation for his work? Is his 
task so simple — the task of molding and shaping the human mind and 
giving the right direction to its energies — as to make it a waste of time 
to prepare him for it? Or is it so unimportant, is the successful per- 
formance of it a thing of so little consequence, that it. is a matter of no 
concern whether he is prepared for it or not? These, one would think, 
are the tests to which the decision of such questions should be brought. 
A mind, intent only, on getting at the true relations of things, which 
asks, not what has been but what ought to be, in determining whether or 
not special preparation should be made for a given work, would inquire 
simply, one would think, whether the work is difficult and important. 
Surely it ought to be self-evident, if anything is, that the more important 
a work is, and the more difficult of accomplishment, the more thorough 
and careful should be the preparation for it. Is the teacher's work impor- 
tant ? Upon the right training of the child, says Gr. Stanley Hall, all good 
causes depend. Is it difficult? No less difficult than that of so manipu- 
lating and modifying the manifold impulses inherited from countless gen- 
erations as to give absolute supremacy to those that make for the well- 
being of man and society. Upon what plea can special preparation for 
the work of the physician be urged which does not apply with still 
greater force to that of the teacher? Is it that the health of the body 
is important? But the body derives its sole value from the mind. 
Apart from the mind, the body would have no more significance than 
the tree that grows by the wayside. Is it that the work of the physi- 
cian is difficult? Who that has given an hour's reflection to the sub- 
ject will assert that the work of the physician, the restoring to health 
of a diseased body, the bringing it into a condition in which each organ 
performs its proper functions — who that has reflected for an hour on 
the subject will assert that this work compares in degree of difficulty 
with that of the teacher, which, is to so influence the human mind that 
it may gradually grow into the condition where each faculty can and will 
perform its proper functions ? The work of the physician for the most 
part consists in helping the body to resume its natural functions ; the 
work of the teacher, on the contrary, consists in so dealing with the 
mind as to change the functions which are natural to it in its undevel- 
oped condition, so that it may become natural for it to do that which it 
is desirable for it to do. Is it that teachers are born, not made, while 
a doctor is made, not born ? I might call attention to the fact that the 
idea that a doctor must have professional training is a modern inven- 
tion, so to speak ; I might urge that in the not very distant past the 
theory practically held was that doctors are born, not made; and I might 
inquire whether some of those born doctors would not bear favorable 
comparison with many of the manufactured doctors of our time. But 
I will not take that course. I will simply inquire what kind of benefit 
a doctor derives from his professional study which the teacher would 



GENERAL SURVEY AND .SUMMARY. 13? 

not derive from the same kind of study? The doctor must make a 
careful study of physiology, because he must know the laws that govern 
the human body. Is it not equally necessary for the teacher to know 
the laws of the human mind? The doctor must make a careful study 
of drugs in order that he may know how they affect the human body. Is 
it not equally necessary for the teacher to make a careful study of the 
educational value of the various agencies by which he hopes to induce 
the human mind to develop in the right direction ? The doctor must 
make a careful study of the history of his profession in order that he 
may avoid wasteful experiments. Is it any the less desirable that a 
teacher should undertake his work from the vantage ground of all the 
experience of the past? Finally, a doctor studies physiology in order 
that he may learn what health is — in order that he may learn what are 
the proper functions of the various organs of the body. Surely it is as 
important for the teacher to make a study of those subjects which* will 
help to give him a definite, clear-cut, sharply defined idea of what the 
health of the mind is, of the functions, in other words, which the various 
faculti es of the mind should perform. 

But there is a reason scarcely less important why the college should 
give professional training to intending teachers. We never shall have 
good schools in this country until the public demand them, and they 
never will demand them effectively until they realize the necessity for 
thoroughly trained teachers. How to convince the public of the neces- 
sity of employing thoroughly trained teachers is a question, I venture 
to say, second to none in importance before the educators of this coun- 
try. "We spend," says President Adams, of Cornell University, " enor- 
mous sums in large and well-arranged buildings and elegant furniture 
and expensive schoolbooks, and then frustrate the purpose of them 
all by not having the one thing, compared with which all the other 
things are as nothing, namely, a good school. How is a change for 
the better to be brought about ? In no other way than by a change of 
public ornnion. This is, of course, the manner in which all reforms 
in a government like ours must proceed, and a radical change in this 
respect is absolutely necessary." How is this change to be effected? 

We have tried to effect it in the past by giving the public experi- 
mental knowledge of the value of professional training to teachers. 
Our theory has been that if they could get a taste, so to speak, of the 
value of professional training to teachers they would so realize its worth 
as to make it the interest of teachers to get it. 

Has our theory worked well % For an answer consider the fact that 
the great State of Ohio has never made a particle of provision for the 
professional training of her teachers, except the establishment of a 
chair of pedagogy in one of the State universities, about four years ago. 
Consider further the fact that complaints come from all parts of the 
country of the removal of superintendents of schools for political rea- 
sons, and that probably in nine- tenths of the towns and cities of the 



138 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

country political considerations are a very prominent factor in deter- 
mining the appointment of teachers. 

Why has it failed ? Because it has not reached the leaders of public 
opinion. Has the public been convinced of the necessity of profession- 
ally trained physicians by an experimental knowledge of their worth I 
The success of patent-medicine venders would hardly lead one to think 
so. No, the leaders of public opinion have been convinced and the 
rank and file have simply followed suit. ■ 

How shall we convince the leaders of public opinion of the necessity 
for professionally trained teachers? By establishing departments of 
pedagogy in our colleges and universities. Such a substantial recogni- 
tion of the fact that there is such a thing as a science and art and his- 
tory of education, which intending teachers should carefully study, 
would of itself exert a powerful influence on the great public. But this 
is as nothing in comparison with the fact that the bulk of the students 
outside those who availed themselves of the opportunities offered in 
the department would soon become convinced of its importance. The dis- 
cussions in the pedagogical recitation room would filter through the 
whole body of students to a sufficient extent to enable them to see that 
there is at least as much reason why the intending teacher should make 
professional preparation for his work as there is in the case of the can- 
didate for any other profession. In this way the men who are soon to 
be centers of influence in their respective communities, the future doc- 
tor and lawyer and professional men generally, would be reached, and 
with these strongholds of public opinion gained the battle would be 
half won. 

What work shall these departments of pedagogy undertake to do? 

In considering this question it should be borne in mind that the col- 
lege is what the normal school is not — a school of general culture. 
And though its elective courses in the department of pedagogy, and it 
may be in other departments, give it to some extent the character of a 
professional school, nevertheless it should make its professional work 
contribute to culture ends as far as possible, particularly in the depart- 
ment of pedagogy, in order that students not intending to teach may 
be attracted to it. 

For this reason, among others, such departments, it seems to me, 
should lay great stress on the history of education. It should be 
taught in connection with two parallel courses — the history of phi- 
losophy and the history of civilization ; and all three should be so 
taught that their interdependence may be clearly seen — the history of 
philosophy as the self-knowledge of each age; the history of the 
processes of bringing into clear consciousness the fundamental as- 
sumptions which each age makes about the universe and man and their 
relations to each other; the history of education as the history of the 
institutions by which each age undertakes to realize its ideal, and by 
which, in part, its ideal is modified. To say nothing of its professional 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 139 

value, and if taught critically, this would be very great, I know of 
few courses of study better calculated to give the student that breadth 
of view, that liberality of sentiment, that " magnificence of mind," 
which are of the very essence of culture. 

If the endowment of the institution makes that degree of division of 
labor possible, the professor of pedagogy ought not to be burdened 
with the department of psychology, although the two chairs should be 
in the closest sympathy with each other. In the latter department the ■ 
students should be encouraged to enlarge their conception of mind by 
a constant use of the objective method, particularly in the study of 
children. And when they take up the work in pedagogy proper, this 
work should be continued under the direction of the professor in a 
more systematic way and for more specific and definite ends. Such 
experiments as those made by G. Stanley Hall and Superintendent 
Greenwood, for the purpose of ascertaining the contents of children's 
minds, should be conducted and the results carefully recorded. Such 
work would have a twofold value : it would gradually put the pro- 
fessor of the department into the possession of a large amount of 
original data, of which he could make very effective use, and it would, 
at the same time, give his students an excellent training m original 
research in the psychology of children, and thus tend to enlarge the 
knowledge of the world on this most important subject. But the 
greatest stress in this line of work should be laid on experiments to 
test the lands of good literature in which children may be interested. 
For reasons stated elsewhere. I regard this work as second in impor- 
tance to none which the educator can possibly undertake. And it seems 
to me entirely practicable to encourage students to make a kind of ex- 
periments which will not only help them to a clearer comprehension of 
the importance of the problem, but which will enable them to make 
substantial contributions towards its solution. 

The work in the science of education will consist to a considerable 
extent in a summing up and systematizing of results reached in a critical 
stud}* of the history of education. Great stress should be laid on the 
education values not merely of different studies but of different courses 
of study. The work in the history of education will have made the 
student familiar with the educational systems of the leading countries 
of the world, and he should be led to a point where he can have an in- 
telligent opinion of their fitness to serve in reaching the ends of edu- 
cation. 

So far as the professor of pedagogy gives instruction in the art of 
education it should relate to the courses of study proper to schools of 
different grades, methods of organizing and grading, modes of super- 
intending, and kindred topics. If he can get an experienced and able 
superintendent to deliver a course of lectures on some of these topics 
it would probably be more effective. Instruction in methods should not 
be given by the professor of pedagogy. Each professor should gi ve a 



140 TRAINING ()V TKA(1l>:iJH in THE UNITED STATES. 

course of lectures on methods of teaching his own subject for the bene- 
fit of those who are preparing to teach it. This is but one of many 
ways in which a department of pedagogy would react favorably on th§ 
work of its own college. When professors begin to reflect on their own 
methods for the sake of formulating them to others they are in a fair 
way to improve them. With Prof. E. J. James, I believe that instruc- 
tion in colleges is in the majority of cases decidedly inferior to that in 
our city schools, and the reason, as I think, is that college professors 
have given so little attention to the study of pedagogy. It would be 
interesting to know what proportion of the college professors in this 
country have ever read a single work on the history of education. 

But the courses of study in normal schools and departments of 
pedagogy are not adapted to the needs of those teachers- who aspire to 
fill the most responsible positions in the profession. It is to me an inter- 
esting fact that both President D. C. Gilman and G. Stanley Hall spent 
the year immediately after they accepted their present positions in 
studying the educational institutions of Europe. I do not, of course, 
mean to intimate that any school of pedagogy could give courses of 
lectures which would be an equivalent for such an actual study on the 
ground of educational institutions. I merely mention the fact as testi- 
mony of the most unimpeachable kind from two very capable witnesses 
as to the kind of preparation demanded for certain kinds of work. 

Consider also the kind of work devolving upon our city school super- 
intendents and its very great responsibility. I believe that few intelli- 
gent men would hesitate to say that Superintendent McAllister is exer- 
cising a more potent influence upon the next generation of the people of 
Philadelphia than any other five men in the city. What is the implica- 
tion? It is that men who fill positions of such great responsibility 
should make the most thorough possible preparation for their work. 

It seems to me evident also that State superintendents and normal- 
school principals ought to be specialists in pedagogy, and when one con- 
siders the kind of questions which college faculties are constantly called 
upon to decide, it is diflicult to believe that the same conclusion does 
not hold of them. 

What iustitutions should provide the training which these educators 
need? I answer, schools of pedagogy. We have seen already that the 
conception upon which alone such an institution can be based is that 
the profession of teaching requires, not as thorough preparation as that 
of any other, but more. For we know enough of educational science to 
know that the teacher must be a scholar, and professional training at 
the expense of scholarship would be a step backwards rather than 
forwards. If, then, the candidates for the higher positions in the pro- 
fession should not only devote as much time to the study of their 
specialty after the completion of their liberal education as the lawyer 
and doctor devote to theirs, but two years in addition in a school of 
pedagogy, it must be because the work for which they are preparing is 



GENERAL SURVEY AND SUMMARY. 141 

more difficult and important, one in which .society has greater interests 
at stake. That I firmly believe this to be true no reader of the |)re- 
cecling pages will need to be told. If the end is more important than 
the means, then the mind is more important than the body, and if a 
profession which aims to promote the welfare of an end is more import- 
ant than one which aims to promote the welfare of a means, then the 
profession of teaching is more important than the medical profession or 
any other profession whatever, with a single exception, and I do not 
think it would be difficult to show that this exception is apparent only. 

I do not feel qualified to suggest the kind of work which a school of 
pedagogy should undertake to do, except in the most general way. In 
the nature of the case it should be a purely professional school, and the 
reasons which justify normal schools in regarding certain kinds of 
academic work as a part of their professional work do not hold here. 
Schools which furnish the intending teacher with ample facilities for 
the study of his specialty already exist, and it would be absurd for the 
school of pedagogy to undertake to duplicate their work. 

Beyond that it is very clear to me that it should build upon the same 
foundation as the college department of pedagogy, only more elabo- 
rately. The history of education should be taught so thoroughly and 
in such detail as to occupy the entire time of an able professor. The 
educational institutions of the leading countries of Europe should be 
studied critically and in great detail; there should be courses of lec- 
tures on the history of universities and normal schools, on city school 
systems, all the while with the object not merely of showing what has 
been, but with the attempt to determine a little more precisely what 
ought to be. 

There should be also a professor of reading. His work should con- 
sist in a critical account of the efforts making all over the world to 
solve the reading problem, and in researches and experiments to ascer- 
tain the kind of good reading in which children can be interested. The 
students in his department should of course be his assistants in this 
work, and one of his chief aims should be to give them such guidance 
in it and such a conviction of its importance as to insure their continu- 
ing it independently after leaving the school. 

In one of its departments the school of pedagogy should realize Presi- 
dent Gray's idea of a normal school. It should make a thorough study 
of the aims and principles and methods of education from the point of 
view of philosophy. In this department logic, as John Stuart Mill de- 
fines it, "the science which investigates those processes of the under- 
standing which are employed in the estimation of evidence," should be 
thoroughly studied. 

For the realization of this ideal, which I have thus faintly outlined, 
we must wait. How long we must wait depends upon the rapidity with 
which departments of pedagogy are organized and put into effective op- 
eration. As I have said elsewhere, what we want in this direction is 



142 TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

not merely departments of pedagogy, but such departments in the charge 
of men whose work will be an overwhelming demonstration of their 
value, of their necessity, indeed, if society is to make the most intelli- 
gent efforts to secure its own well-being. When such departments form 
a part of the regular work of a good college, then the day when schools 
of pedagogy will be regarded as an essential feature of our educational 
system will be near at hand. The organization of the New York Col- 
lege for the Training of Teachers, whose avowed aim is to grow into 
such a school, is indeed an omen of great significance. It is the begin- 
ning of a new era — the era when the profession of teaching is to take its 
proper place among the professions of the world. 

We have seen that a majority of our teachers can not afford to take as 
thorough and extended a course as that offered by the normal school. 
To meet their wants, the provision made in the teachers' classes of cer- 
tain academies and union schools of the State of New York seems to me 
to be worthy of imitation. Indeed, I think it may be said in general 
that New York offers the amplest facilities for the training of teachers, 
and presents to teachers the strongest inducements to avail themselves 
of them of any State in the Union. As to the training classes in the 
academies of that State, the only criticism I feel disposed to make is 
that I should like to see them lay more stress on scholarship, particu- 
larly in United States history and English literature. 

But the provision of a good course of training for that class of teach- 
ers by no means insures that they will avail themselves of it. They will 
do it or not, according as it is made their interest to do so, and it will be 
made their interest only on condition that the public appreciate its im- 
portance. If I am right in my opinion that the surest way to convince 
the public of the value of professionally trained teachers is by the estab- 
lishment of departments of pedagogy in our colleges and universities, 
we see from another point of view how immensely important such de- 
partments are. To break down the wall of conservatism that surrounds 
our colleges, to secure from them the same respect for the profession of 
teaching which they give to the professions of law and medicine, would 
be to effect the most important advance which has ever been made in 
the history of education or the world. 



INDEX. 



Page. 

Academies of New York, course of study in, in 1835 33 

1890 118,119 

action of, in regard to training of teachers, 1831-34 . . 27 

lessons taught by teachers' classes in, up to 1844 120 

report of Dr. Potter on 37 

Adams, John, on Lancaster 9* 

Albany, establishment of a normal school at 39 

Apprenticeship, system of, in Worcester State Normal School 76 

Bache, Professor, on Prussian normal schools 20 

Barnard, Henry, on Cyrus Peirce 49 

educational paper edited by 23 

Barre, normal school located at 43 

Bell, on Lancaster 24 

Boone, Richard G., quotation from , 8 

Breck, Samuel, recommends a course for teachers in colleges 17 

Brooks, Charles, form taken by normal schools in United States determined by . 43 

labors of, in behalf of normal schools 19 

Burrowes, Thomas M., report of 17 

Carter, James G., efforts of, in behalf of normal schools 13 

school of, for training of teachers 13 

Clinton, De Witt .' 16-23 

Colton, Chauncey, on training of teachers 16 

Dickinson, J. W., objective method of teaching first taught in America by 59 

Didactics, course of study in, in Iowa State University 100 

Dwight, Edmund, gift of, to Massachusetts normal schools 42 

Henry, on Prussian normal schools 19 

Education, revival of 22, 23 

Emerson, George B., advocated a normal school in New York 39 

letter of, concerning the normal school at Lexington 53 

Everett, Edward, on course of study in a normal school 44 

Fellows, on chairs of pedagogy 98 

Flagg, Azariah, report of, to legislature 27 

France, normal schools in 38 

Francke, Augustus Herman, school of, for training teachers 18 

Gallaudet, Thomas H., essays of 14 

Gray, Thomas J., on normal school idea 90 

Green, S. S., report of, on Oswego methods 68 

Greenood, J. M., experiments made by, in study of children . : 139 

Hall, G. Stanley, on study of children 81, 88 

teaching reading 132 

Samuel R., school of 12 

lectures by, on school-keeping 12 

Hilliard, George S., on course of study in a normal school 44 

Howe, Dr. Samuel G., on the Lexington normal school 54 

Hulburdj Calvin T., advocated Albany normal school 39 

143 



144 INDEX. 

Page. 

Humboldt, William von, influence of, on Prussian normal schools 18 

Hyde, Ellen, on amount of professional work done by normal school, Fram- 

ingham 59 

Iowa State University, course of study in didactics in 100 

Jefferson, popular education advocated by 8 

Johnson, Walter R., pamphlet of 14 

on Prussian normal schools 19 

Junkin, George, letter of 16 

Kingsley, James L., article of 11 

Lancaster, system of 23 

Lancasterianism, influence of, on training schools in England *. 25 

La Salle, normal school of 23 

Lathrop, Delia A., on normal-school graduates ' 127 

Laurie, on teaching genius 134 

Lexington, Mass., location of normal school at 43 

Lincoln, Governor of Massachusetts, message of 16 

Lindsley, Phillip, address of 16 

Mann, Horace, account given by, of the testing methods used by some Prussian 

normal schools 57 

advocated a normal school in New York , 39 

character of 47 

comparison drawn by, between teachers' departments in New 

York academies and the Massachusetts normal schools 40 

educational paper edited by 23 

on first business of a normal school 44 

on Lancasterianism 25 

May, Samuel J., letter of, concerning Lexington normal school 17 

Mulcaster, first suggested idea of normal schools 17 

New England, opinion of early settlers of, on education 7 

studies pursued in the early schools of 8 

Normal school, proper course of study in 128 

true work of 128 

of Oswego, significance of 122 

St. Cloud, criticism of idea of, embodied in 126 

Worcester, significance of 123 

schools of Massachusetts, significance of, in early period of their his- 
tory 121 

Objective method of teaching, first taught in America by J. W. Dickinson ... 59 

Olmstead, Denison, oration by, on state of education in Connecticut 10 

Oswego State Normal School, influence of, on public schools 73 

Training School, establishment of 72 

transformation of, into State normal school 73 

Parker, Francis W., on normal schools 105 

Payne, W. H., on public school teachers in Michigan 127 

Pedagogy, Fellows on chairs of 98 

reasons for establishing college departments of 137 

work to be done by college departments of 138 

Pestalozzi, on method . . .* 92 

Peirce, Cyrus, Horace Mann's opinion of 50 

letter of, to Henry Barnard 49 

Samuel J. May's opinion of 51 

Potter, advocate of a normal school 39 

' report of, on New York academies 37 

Prussia, influence of normal schools in 17 

normal schools in 38 



INDEX. 145 

Page. 

Psychology, method of studying it at Worcester '. 86, 87 

Quincy, Josiah, gift of, to Massachusetts normal schools 55 

Regents of New York University, report of, in 1832 27 

1834 31 

Russell, Principal, explains Worcester method of studying children 81 

William, pamphlet of 17 

Schoolmen, opinion of 7 

address of, to visitors of the Oswego schools 67 

Sheldon, E. A., dissatisfaction of> with schools of Oswego in 1853 61 

effect upon, of a visit to the educational department at Toronto. 63 
proposal of, to establish a department for training of teachers. . 65 
reconstruction by, of the course of study of the Oswego schools . 67 

Spencer, John C, reports of 16, 26 

on academies and normal schools 38 

St. Cloud, course of study in normal school at 96, 97 

Stowe, Calvin E., on teachers' seminaries 20 

Study of children, G.Stanley Hall on 88 

value of 84, 85 

Ticknor, Elisha, on training of teachers '.' 9 

Washburn, Governor, address of 58 

Wilbur, H. B., on Oswego methods : 68 

Woodbridge, W. C, educational paper edited by 23 

on Lancasterianism 24 

young, report of.. -- T . -- ,,...„,,,. ,....„,„.,.„, 38,39 

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